Memphis wrestling had more back hair than any other promotion, hands down. Hell, Jerry Lawler and Dutch Mantell could carpet a hotel suit between just between themselves.
I don't look up to DC heroes, I look up to Marvel because they're flawed and yet heroic. DC heroes are great to read about but they aren't relatable in any way.
I used to agree with that until I read a different take: Marvel makes comics for teens, DC makes comics for kids. The moment I read that, I knew it was true.
WWE actually made Jim Ross seem more "cowboy" when he went to WWE--if you ever saw him Mid South or WCW (when he was "down there") he was more refined and sophisticated. Yes, his accent was rough, but he wasn't cranked up until he went up north. Bill Watts--same thing. Yes, he was a "Cowboy", but he sounded very intelligent and educated (he went to the University of Oklahoma, after all), used big words and had a sense of class. He never played the "dumb" tobacco chewing cowboy that you saw from Stan Hansen or Blackjack Mulligan. Bill Watts was cool like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne, he was the kind of wrestler who could have performed in Westerns playing Wyatt Earp if he wanted to
I personally like Brian co-hosting a lot more. I never had any feelings about Alice, in either direction, but now hearing her voice makes me feel the same as seeing an ex pop up on the caller id.
Southern wrestling was and will always be the best! As a fan you believed the Freebirds hated the Von Erich brothers. The epic feud between Dusty vs Flair on TBS on the *MUTHASHIP* was the reason why I follow pro wrestling. The Four Horsemen attacking Dusty and Magnum TA with weapons was real to me damn it. It was soooooooo southern that you can see that Dusty had chewing tobacco in his back pocket. And of course living in Florida I could relate to that. Did it go to far? No! The story they are telling on Saturday Night at 5:05 on TBS was that people were fighting over legit reasons. Not that some random sports entertainers doing an acting gig waiting their time to read the lines. The Southern Rasslers wanted to be champion! They wanted the due respect from their peers! It was the 80s damn it! Wallstreet was a popular movie! *GREED IS GOOD* was the thing people believed. Of course the fans wanted to emulate the Four Horsemen! Who didn't want to be rich and famous and have all the hot womens!
Southern wrestling was the best. As a new immigrant kid growing up in the Northeast in the 70s, all we had was WWF. We kids thought wrestling was 100% real but among the adults there was always some debate. Then, we got cable TV and with that came the Superstation TBS from Georgia. It blew our minds! Ole, Gene, and Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Wildfire Tommy Rich, The Freebirds, Buzz Sawyer, The Road Warriors, Ronny Garvin, The Great Kabuki, Ricky Steamboat, etc. When we first started watching Southern wrestling, the consensus became, "Ok, this WWF stuff isn't real; it's a work. But this stuff from Georgia? Oh, this is real! These guys are for real and it's a shoot." That's how much better Southern wrestling was. We were convinced that WWF was fake but Georgia Championship Wrestling was legitimate fighting. As a kid living in New England, I would have given anything if I could have gone, just once, to The Omni in Atlanta to see a card.
"We had blood, we had violence, we set people on fucking fire, but we did it in such a way that it was viewed in the context of a realistic sporting event." What an amazing statement, haha!
Growing up watching mid-south and WCCW, he's right. P. S. Hayes giving a slow count as special ref for a Kerry Von Erich's match was Hayes' fault! Because the Freebirds hated Von Erichs. And it was awesome!
Cornett is right..N.W.A ..C.W.A .U.W.F ..A.W.Aand W.C.C.W was the best n the 80s.. freebirds vs non erichs.. Lawler vs Dundee.. fabulous ones vs moondogs..Lawler n Randy Savage ..Flair vs Dusty.. Lawler vs Eddie Gilbert..Magnum T.A vs Tully Blanchard..Nick Bockwinkel vs Greg Gunyan..Rock n roll express vs midnight express.. Memphis wrestling is what created ECW..Paul heyman managed Tommy Rich n Austin idol ..two of Lawler friends of wrestling..put the hit on Lawler ..they posted Lawler ..put him out wrestling for months.. Abdullah the butcher matches vs bruiser Brody..I didn't like WWF at all back then because after watches these other show..Hogan nem looked so phone back then..bring back the old days..when Lawler throw fire n piledrive people..back when u couldn't make to the ring or promo with getn busted open..or jumped..we knew it wasnt real but it was convincing and looked real
When Marlin & Jerrett would apologize about something that had happened, they would always talk about Wrestling being a family show. Thought that was funny.
If the video I saw is the correct one, Lawler was wearing an orange shirt and blue jeans when he took that car bump! But still, that was one dangerous stunt which convinces me that Lawler was indeed one of the greatest wrestlers of all time
Saw the live show with the car spot. Marlin was firing Eddie Gilbert. Doug brought the car around while Eddie Marlin was kicking Hot Stuff out of the building. Gilbert was about to beat up Marlin when Lawler made the save. Eddie jumped in the car ran the King down.
Corny needs to open a wrestling promotion in North Korea 🇰🇵 The people have no internet to smarten them up, the ones who do get wise will still play along and imagine the heat Corny will get the first time he cuts a promo on the Supreme Leader😱
The Lawler - Valiant promo they discuss is a classic. It starts off as nothing and builds up slowly over a single interview. Great stuff. Go find it and watch it if you haven't already.
I live in NW Florida. Bullet Bob Armstrong and I think at least one of his sons live in my area, as does Bill Watts and Michael Hayes is from Pensacola.
1986 in NWA Mid Atlantic where Tully Blanchard manhandled & smacked Baby doll before Dusty Rhoades come out for the save on World Championship Wrestling
Today's fans can say whatever they want about how the 70's and 80's stuff was too hokey and not believable, but when you can have a police station flooded with phone calls over a possible murder charge, people bought it. Try doing an angle like that today.
WWE presented their wrestlers as larger than life gods. The south presented wrestlers as every men but still believable tough guys. Even the pretty boy faces looked tough.
Or as I like to think in hindsight ..guys that made you picture them getting into their rental cars with spikes, make up in full on Kay fabe and going to the store ie. Demolition, Macho Man for example and laughing at the thought
Bill Watts took the tough guy part even further. He had a standing rule: To paraphrase: “I do not encourage anyone to get in a bar fight. But we are trying to present y’all as the toughest men around, so if you do find yourself in a bar fight, I’ll fire you if you lose.”
Back in a 1983 Wrestling News interview of Rowdy Roddy Piper when he was involved in blistering hot action in both Georgia and MidAtlantic Piper said "I didn't run him down in an alley." Meaning Rick Steamboat. The seed for Lawler and Gilbert circa 1988 might have been planted there.B.W.
I grew up on 80's WWF. It was my cartoon BUT now days I love Crochet and NWA. Jim said he didn't like "hardcore wrestling" but I'd consider many things of the past "hardcore" I'm team Cornette.
That was part of the magic that we'll never likely see again. We used to believe that the Horsemen hated Dusty, that the Freebirds wanted to take out JYD, that Magnum would've put that wooden spike into Tully's skull if he didn't scream out 'YESSSSS!!!!' in that 'I Quit' match at Starrcade. As a collective, we wanted nothing to do with the glitz, skits, and fireworks that Vince brought to the table, which drew in the kids but not the adults who wanted to see a fight...
If you went in thinking it was real, and you watched a southern wrestling show, you didn’t see anything that made you question that belief. These were guys that might both be a little crazy and they didn’t like each other. And when they met Monday night at the auditorium, they were going to beat each other up. Tickets on sale.
Also, in the mid 80’s, TV Guide had to start including the promotion in the listings. In 82: 26 - 4:00 Wrestling In 86 8 - 3:00 WWF Wrestling 26 - 4:00 UWF Wrestling They put the change in because nobody down south would watch WWF,
The only time we ever watched the WWF was when it was something major, like a Saturday Night's Main Event when a decent match actually took place or some vignette of a big name coming into the WWF, which happened often. But to loyally watch the squash matches featuring Mario Mancini getting beat on by Paul Orndorff or Kamala instead of the Horsemen throwing down with Dusty or Ron Garvin? No thanks. And being down here in Atlanta, we had a show called 'Superstars of Wrestling' which featured wrestling programs from just about every company worth its' salt that ran right after TBS' show from 8 that Saturday night to around 2:30 the next morning. To say that we were spoiled for choice to the point where Vince put a cease and desist out to that station to stop airing their programs next to others on that show that were far better in match quality was an understatement...
Jerry Lawler wasn't wearing the black sweatshirt and sweatpants when he was hit by the car. He was wearing that during the retaliatory beating in the parking lot of Eddie Gilbert.
I'm from Harlan ky and I got to see a few Smokey Mountain shows when I was young. Got to see some great shows in the same high school gym where i ended up going to school.
Jim Cornette knows his shit I was watching him in Memphis when it was the 70'S into the eighties I'm 55 years old and I remember watching every Saturday and or Sunday the best of the best came through Memphis they were the best promotion four nights a week in the same cities every week look in the archives and check out the crowds they drew every single week and kept the show evolving. R.i.p. Jerry Jarrette.
The best wrestling and best angles the old territory days , how I wish it would come back how I miss those days and Saturday morning wrestling some of the best memories of my childhood.
Trudy Hurd(actually Luna in disguise) on behalf of "Sports Review magazine" or something, presents Kendall Windham with an award ringside and here comes good old Buddy Rose, Kevin Sullivan and Bob Roop to attack Kendle ...Trudy somehow gets in the middle and takes the mother of all potatoes to the face! A loud SMACK! her head looked like a balloon getting swatted out of the air!😂
Lawler spent nearly half his childhood living a short distance west of Cleveland, Ohio. Listen to just about any promo he did during the mid 70s and you'll hear a pronounced Southern accent.
Well, AWA was only slightly different than the NWA in the sense that there was less blood and violence. Theirs' was serious to the point of boring---but then, you have to think that the AWA operated in areas that put a premium on amateur wrestling at the collegiate level, so they had to make their stuff SUPER believable, but then it wasn't as exciting. Whereas NWA was more balanced---where believability doesn't have to mean boring
3:35 in the mid 80s people weren't smart? Maybe some backwoods hillbillies. Wrestling fans have always been the way these "smark" fans today are. The love the spectacle. They love the angles and the over the top heels. Cornette is talking about Crockett/NWA whos biggest star is ric flair, one of the most over the top heels ever. People all knew it was fake but they watch it for the same reason they watch days of our lives, even though its fake. They get caught up in the story lines and it has the feel of a real life show when youre there. Its like watching a play, when youre in the audience you are fully invested. Whereas, if you watching it on tv, you arent as invested, but you can get caught up in the angles. "I wanna see what (so and so) does this week" Im from the south. It was conventional wisdom that wrastlin was fake, but it had its fans. Alot of casual fans and a million or so die hards. Its the same way today, just less casual fans. But thats because the angles are bad and WWE has been exclusively geared towards children since chris benoit killed his family. I quit watching in 2001 because i felt vince mcmahon was killing the buisness
They always kind of blurred the lines with getting the news involved at times. People were like it’s fake but these guys really hate each other in real life. It kept thinking hey maybe some of it is actually real at the time.
Where did I see it? I'll remember later, but a wrestler was in the ring before (?) a match in a large, filled arena in Dallas. He's talking about JFK and saying: Some people say one person shot him, some people say a bunch of people shot him, I think he took one look around this town and committed suicide.
Jerry Lawler used to go too far a lot. The Jimmy valiant incident where Jerry call Jimmy a f@ggot was going too far due to children being present and no tape editing to prevent it from being shown. Jerry has a history of bringing wrestlers personal lives out in the open turning promos into shoots when he can't win a verbal battle in those promos. Watch it for yourselves it's all on TH-cam.
Regarding Cornette's commentary on Lawler/Gilbert car incident, and viewers who called police... what part of the game is this? I was 12 when I saw Sullivan stab Mulligan in the heart (kill the head, and the body dies lol), and nobody in Florida called the police. It was none of my business. If it ain't your business, leave it alone. Who are these meddlesome people?
I can't quite remember if it was blackjack Mulligan, or Bobby the hangman Jaggers, or who, but in one promotion remember, when they used to sit a heel with a commentator during the match and it was clearly a biased commentary. The heel is commentating on how tough he thinks the opponent in the ring is and then says" he's not like these stinking Von Eric's dying on you all the time" I was like 😮 yooo
You can do things to improve wrestling nowadays buuuuuuut you will never EEEEEVER return to what wrestling used to be! Those days are in the history books now.
Actually, Eddie Marlin ran the Gilberts out of the studio, and when Eddie Gilbert attacked Marlin, Lawler came out to help, that's when Eddie got in the car, and ran Lawler down.
It brings about the question, did Cornette and Lawler really think ECW was crap, it did they really just hate that a guy neither liked (Heyman) took from Memphis wrestling, and got popular with it?
jimbo 2346 Cornette has made peace with Heyman Lawler that's another iconicly Paul has he's glad the violence was tone via head chair shots Cornett said it can be done if done right.
@@BigEvan96 Corny HATES extreme wrestling, especially when there is little payoff for the talent. He's not opposed to blood, as he's bladed himself, but he doesnt believe the extreme guys have much, or any, talent, which he feels makes the rest of the Wrestling community look bad.
It would be possible today. You'd need real old school dedication but you could do it. In so long as you acted the same in every promotion you went to and outside of them you could establish a reputation as a heel. Basically be a dick to everyone all the time. However the promoters would have to know that you were working a character in and out of the ring. So long as that never broke you could do a TON of old school stuff.
Daven Watts I agre, during that time DC Frank Miller and the dark knight, the watchman and swamp thing with Alan moore.... marvel sucked in the mid 80s, bad reference Jimmy
Jerry Lawler was not born in Cleveland he was born in Memphis Tennessee they moved to Cleveland when he was about 7 or 8 years old get you facts straight Jim cornette
I'm glad you got rid of this co host. It seems like they can't stop interrupting you trying to finish your thoughts or somehow quipping back with an a comment that isn't beneficial to the topic at hand at all.
Not too long after Eddie Graham's death Florida championship Wrestling aired a run in between Mike Graham that I felt was in pretty questionable taste. Gordon Solie was interviewing Mike about how he was doing and Mike was talking about how he was going to win the world title and dedicate it to his dad.Well, The Freebirds show up and Buddy gets in Mike's face saying " Like father like son and then the Freebirds beat him up. It was well done in a way. Everyone was very. Believable but it seemed rather a rather cold hearted exploitive thing to do for an angle. I was quite dissipointed in all parties involved... especially Gordon. Really more sad and creepy given the way Mike died. But again... Very well acted.
Edge paid Michael Hayes back in his own coin when he casually remarked on Terry Gordy being dead one night in WWE just to draw heat. And it did piss me off.B.W.
"We set people on fucking fire..but we did it in a way that it was viewed in the context of a realistic sporting event" 😂
In his own unique way, Jim Cornette is the Ken Burns of Pro Wrestling. He has a true fondness,& passion for the history of the business.
Damn. Wouldn't it be great if ken Burns did a history of wrestling series
@@breno7950 god that would be amazing
@@breno7950 Do it Mr. Burns
Bruce prichard#1
Heck yeah it would!! I'd tune in
Jim hit the nail on the head when he said "the promoter said go out there and have an arguement, not a script."
oh how i miss the good old days of 70's and 80's southern wrestling it will never ever be the same
Memphis wrestling had more back hair than any other promotion, hands down. Hell, Jerry Lawler and Dutch Mantell could carpet a hotel suit between just between themselves.
Memphis wrestling was a JOKE with 2nd and 3rd rate wrestlers.
Glad I wasn’t the only one that noticed
@@jaysantos536 No…just stop talking about wrestling on the internet…stop for the love of god
Too funny
If memphis was a joke then you are the punchline
I always liked the analogy. "marvel has the hero's you can relate too" "DC has hero's you look up too."
I don't look up to DC heroes, I look up to Marvel because they're flawed and yet heroic. DC heroes are great to read about but they aren't relatable in any way.
I used to agree with that until I read a different take: Marvel makes comics for teens, DC makes comics for kids. The moment I read that, I knew it was true.
@@handsomebrick Only grown men read comics now though
@@nohbuddy1 Which is why they don't sell.
@@handsomebrick Exactly
I was privileged to see Starrcade 83 in Greensboro N.C. . When Ric Flair won the NWA title you saw adults crying like children .. It was so real!!!!!!
Crockett's NWA was a vastly superior product to McMahon's WWF, but WWF had better businessmen behind it.
definitely
YEP!
My Dad would always say that the NWA was the best
WWE actually made Jim Ross seem more "cowboy" when he went to WWE--if you ever saw him Mid South or WCW (when he was "down there") he was more refined and sophisticated. Yes, his accent was rough, but he wasn't cranked up until he went up north. Bill Watts--same thing. Yes, he was a "Cowboy", but he sounded very intelligent and educated (he went to the University of Oklahoma, after all), used big words and had a sense of class. He never played the "dumb" tobacco chewing cowboy that you saw from Stan Hansen or Blackjack Mulligan. Bill Watts was cool like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne, he was the kind of wrestler who could have performed in Westerns playing Wyatt Earp if he wanted to
Urghhhhh it's Alice...., Thank God for Brian Last
I personally like Brian co-hosting a lot more. I never had any feelings about Alice, in either direction, but now hearing her voice makes me feel the same as seeing an ex pop up on the caller id.
What?
Agreed
That’s a good way to put it.
Southern wrestling was and will always be the best! As a fan you believed the Freebirds hated the Von Erich brothers. The epic feud between Dusty vs Flair on TBS on the *MUTHASHIP* was the reason why I follow pro wrestling. The Four Horsemen attacking Dusty and Magnum TA with weapons was real to me damn it. It was soooooooo southern that you can see that Dusty had chewing tobacco in his back pocket. And of course living in Florida I could relate to that.
Did it go to far? No! The story they are telling on Saturday Night at 5:05 on TBS was that people were fighting over legit reasons. Not that some random sports entertainers doing an acting gig waiting their time to read the lines. The Southern Rasslers wanted to be champion! They wanted the due respect from their peers! It was the 80s damn it! Wallstreet was a popular movie! *GREED IS GOOD* was the thing people believed. Of course the fans wanted to emulate the Four Horsemen! Who didn't want to be rich and famous and have all the hot womens!
I agree southern wrestling felt real
Undertaker Wasn't About That Lifestyle He Was Unique
Back when only morons watched wrestling because they insisted you believe it was real and only morons believed.
6:05 idiot and how the fuck you have time to write all that get a life
you do realize florida is in the central time zone.....
"Cops always ruin a good time."
@BullfrogWisdom go drunk, you’re home
@@selfishstockton6123 it's a King of the Hill quote (Dale Gribble to be exact)
Southern wrestling was the best. As a new immigrant kid growing up in the Northeast in the 70s, all we had was WWF. We kids thought wrestling was 100% real but among the adults there was always some debate. Then, we got cable TV and with that came the Superstation TBS from Georgia. It blew our minds! Ole, Gene, and Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Wildfire Tommy Rich, The Freebirds, Buzz Sawyer, The Road Warriors, Ronny Garvin, The Great Kabuki, Ricky Steamboat, etc. When we first started watching Southern wrestling, the consensus became, "Ok, this WWF stuff isn't real; it's a work. But this stuff from Georgia? Oh, this is real! These guys are for real and it's a shoot." That's how much better Southern wrestling was. We were convinced that WWF was fake but Georgia Championship Wrestling was legitimate fighting. As a kid living in New England, I would have given anything if I could have gone, just once, to The Omni in Atlanta to see a card.
"We had blood, we had violence, we set people on fucking fire, but we did it in such a way that it was viewed in the context of a realistic sporting event." What an amazing statement, haha!
Growing up watching mid-south and WCCW, he's right. P. S. Hayes giving a slow count as special ref for a Kerry Von Erich's match was Hayes' fault! Because the Freebirds hated Von Erichs. And it was awesome!
Jim Cornette tells it like it is, don't ask him a question if you don't want you to tell him what he thinks
I tried to get my ex wife to understand that...
What has 100 legs, 8 teeth and an IQ of 40? The front row of the Mid South Coliseum...
Cornett is right..N.W.A ..C.W.A .U.W.F ..A.W.Aand W.C.C.W was the best n the 80s.. freebirds vs non erichs.. Lawler vs Dundee.. fabulous ones vs moondogs..Lawler n Randy Savage ..Flair vs Dusty.. Lawler vs Eddie Gilbert..Magnum T.A vs Tully Blanchard..Nick Bockwinkel vs Greg Gunyan..Rock n roll express vs midnight express.. Memphis wrestling is what created ECW..Paul heyman managed Tommy Rich n Austin idol ..two of Lawler friends of wrestling..put the hit on Lawler ..they posted Lawler ..put him out wrestling for months.. Abdullah the butcher matches vs bruiser Brody..I didn't like WWF at all back then because after watches these other show..Hogan nem looked so phone back then..bring back the old days..when Lawler throw fire n piledrive people..back when u couldn't make to the ring or promo with getn busted open..or jumped..we knew it wasnt real but it was convincing and looked real
"Amen"
Non Erich’s?
ECW was born from Florida wrasslin
When Marlin & Jerrett would apologize about something that had happened, they would always talk about Wrestling being a family show. Thought that was funny.
John Oman o
If the video I saw is the correct one, Lawler was wearing an orange shirt and blue jeans when he took that car bump! But still, that was one dangerous stunt which convinces me that Lawler was indeed one of the greatest wrestlers of all time
Saw the live show with the car spot.
Marlin was firing Eddie Gilbert. Doug brought the car around while Eddie Marlin was kicking Hot Stuff out of the building. Gilbert was about to beat up Marlin when Lawler made the save. Eddie jumped in the car ran the King down.
Corny needs to open a wrestling promotion in North Korea 🇰🇵
The people have no internet to smarten them up, the ones who do get wise will still play along and imagine the heat Corny will get the first time he cuts a promo on the Supreme Leader😱
The Lawler - Valiant promo they discuss is a classic. It starts off as nothing and builds up slowly over a single interview. Great stuff. Go find it and watch it if you haven't already.
The king slaps the taste outta his mouth
I just watched it a few days ago. Classic stuff
Yeah, that was a great piece of business...simple, effective stuff...
Jimmy Valiant was actually born in Hammond, Indiana, like me.
I talked to him about it.
Great guy.
Gordon Hatherley Really
Really
I thought it was Terry Funk who was born in Hammond,IN and "Handsome" Jimmy was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee
I live in NW Florida. Bullet Bob Armstrong and I think at least one of his sons live in my area, as does Bill Watts and Michael Hayes is from Pensacola.
1986 in NWA Mid Atlantic where Tully Blanchard manhandled & smacked Baby doll before Dusty Rhoades come out for the save on World Championship Wrestling
Clifton Smith Tully didn't hold back either, he smacked the shit outta Baby Doll
The funniest part of that is David Crockett trying to be a hero and JJ Dillon holding him back.
Today's fans can say whatever they want about how the 70's and 80's stuff was too hokey and not believable, but when you can have a police station flooded with phone calls over a possible murder charge, people bought it. Try doing an angle like that today.
WWE presented their wrestlers as larger than life gods. The south presented wrestlers as every men but still believable tough guys. Even the pretty boy faces looked tough.
Or as I like to think in hindsight ..guys that made you picture them getting into their rental cars with spikes, make up in full on Kay fabe and going to the store ie. Demolition, Macho Man for example and laughing at the thought
Bill Watts took the tough guy part even further. He had a standing rule:
To paraphrase: “I do not encourage anyone to get in a bar fight. But we are trying to present y’all as the toughest men around, so if you do find yourself in a bar fight, I’ll fire you if you lose.”
My favorites were JCP, GCW, Mid-South, CWF, WCCW
Who knew that Corny was knowledgable on comic books?
Didn't he used to own Amazing Fantasy #15 with Spidey's first appearance?
He talks about them a lot, over the years.
I grew up on Memphis wrestling, and remember that promo, and believed they were really pissed at each other, those angles were always believable.
I just watched the Lawless/Valiant promo. Jim's right... Beautiful ❤️
Spot on analogy with Marvel vs DC
Both companies have great characters.
DC has Batman and Superman, what more do you need?
Back in a 1983 Wrestling News interview of Rowdy Roddy Piper when he was involved in blistering hot action in both Georgia and MidAtlantic Piper said "I didn't run him down in an alley." Meaning Rick Steamboat. The seed for Lawler and Gilbert circa 1988 might have been planted there.B.W.
I grew up on 80's WWF. It was my cartoon BUT now days I love Crochet and NWA. Jim said he didn't like "hardcore wrestling" but I'd consider many things of the past "hardcore" I'm team Cornette.
Did Waldo Von Erich really say that?!Holy shit.
What would you expect a Nazi villain to say?
That was part of the magic that we'll never likely see again. We used to believe that the Horsemen hated Dusty, that the Freebirds wanted to take out JYD, that Magnum would've put that wooden spike into Tully's skull if he didn't scream out 'YESSSSS!!!!' in that 'I Quit' match at Starrcade. As a collective, we wanted nothing to do with the glitz, skits, and fireworks that Vince brought to the table, which drew in the kids but not the adults who wanted to see a fight...
If you went in thinking it was real, and you watched a southern wrestling show, you didn’t see anything that made you question that belief.
These were guys that might both be a little crazy and they didn’t like each other. And when they met Monday night at the auditorium, they were going to beat each other up. Tickets on sale.
Also, in the mid 80’s, TV Guide had to start including the promotion in the listings.
In 82:
26 - 4:00 Wrestling
In 86
8 - 3:00 WWF Wrestling
26 - 4:00 UWF Wrestling
They put the change in because nobody down south would watch WWF,
The only time we ever watched the WWF was when it was something major, like a Saturday Night's Main Event when a decent match actually took place or some vignette of a big name coming into the WWF, which happened often. But to loyally watch the squash matches featuring Mario Mancini getting beat on by Paul Orndorff or Kamala instead of the Horsemen throwing down with Dusty or Ron Garvin? No thanks.
And being down here in Atlanta, we had a show called 'Superstars of Wrestling' which featured wrestling programs from just about every company worth its' salt that ran right after TBS' show from 8 that Saturday night to around 2:30 the next morning. To say that we were spoiled for choice to the point where Vince put a cease and desist out to that station to stop airing their programs next to others on that show that were far better in match quality was an understatement...
Well the attitude era was pretty insane. Also, ECW was pretty lit.
Jerry Lawler wasn't wearing the black sweatshirt and sweatpants when he was hit by the car. He was wearing that during the retaliatory beating in the parking lot of Eddie Gilbert.
Who fucking cares loser!
I'm from Harlan ky and I got to see a few Smokey Mountain shows when I was young. Got to see some great shows in the same high school gym where i ended up going to school.
Matthew Carroll here’s your cookies 🍪
Do you know a guy named Raylan Givens?
Jim Cornette knows his shit I was watching him in Memphis
when it was the 70'S into the eighties
I'm 55 years old and I remember watching every Saturday and or Sunday the best of the best came through Memphis they were the best promotion four nights a week in the same cities every week look in the archives and check out the crowds they drew every single week and kept the show evolving. R.i.p. Jerry Jarrette.
Thank God I grew up on Memphis Wresting
Same here!!!
Even with Alice, this was a classic.
Alice is a queen.
Wish i could have seen the genius of jim cornette as a kid in the 80s and 90s...
Yep, Corny was certainly fun to ‘hate’ back in the day
The best wrestling and best angles the old territory days , how I wish it would come back how I miss those days and Saturday morning wrestling some of the best memories of my childhood.
No doubt-I grew up watching wrestling as a preteen and teenager during the 80s , and it was fun era. It was definitely grittier and more “believable”.
As much as I luuuuv'ed the Attitude Era, it'll be hard to bring that style of wrestling back if they want to keep their sponsorships.
Troy F. Well the head chair shots are gone forever whether it's the attitude era or ruthless aggression era.
Dag...soon WWE will have the current NFL rules in place too! lol
Game of thrones had tits, rape, beheadings and incest. How about just broadcast it online?
The dry, no soul lady sure meshed well with the Cornette brand 👍🏻
Trudy Hurd(actually Luna in disguise)
on behalf of "Sports Review magazine" or something, presents Kendall Windham with an award ringside and here comes good old Buddy Rose, Kevin Sullivan and Bob Roop to attack Kendle ...Trudy somehow gets in the middle and takes the mother of all potatoes to the face! A loud SMACK! her head looked like a balloon getting swatted out of the air!😂
I grew up watching Memphis Wrestling and the Mid South Coliseum was jumping on Monday nights
NWA was the REAL wrestling in the 80s WWF was the cartoon
Love her voice
Jerry Lawler once told Kerry Von Erich that the Von Erich family was just like the Kennedys!! That was cold...but funny!!!
Jerry Lawler was quick with the insults 😂😂😂😂
Corny is probably right about everything in pro wrestling. But DC over Marvel any day of the week, twice on Sundays.
Drinking game . Take a shot everytime alice interrupts . Drunk by 4:53
Alice is sexy af 🌹
WHERE DID CORNY FIND HER?..........jesus christ wtf
Another Lawler Memphis promo that might have gone to far was the one he shot on Kamala (RIP).
"I'm gonna wet his lips and stick him to the wall!".. that was hilarious.
I'm waiting for a NWA Power match to have some bloodshed.
I've never heard or even thought of Lawler as a "Southerner".
He's the King Of Memphis, Tennessee, so there's that...
@@stinkypinkeee5085 im a 90s kid. He was wearing Hawaii shirts and screaming about puppies when i caught up with him.
Lawler spent nearly half his childhood living a short distance west of Cleveland, Ohio. Listen to just about any promo he did during the mid 70s and you'll hear a pronounced Southern accent.
Well, AWA was only slightly different than the NWA in the sense that there was less blood and violence. Theirs' was serious to the point of boring---but then, you have to think that the AWA operated in areas that put a premium on amateur wrestling at the collegiate level, so they had to make their stuff SUPER believable, but then it wasn't as exciting. Whereas NWA was more balanced---where believability doesn't have to mean boring
3:35 in the mid 80s people weren't smart? Maybe some backwoods hillbillies. Wrestling fans have always been the way these "smark" fans today are. The love the spectacle. They love the angles and the over the top heels.
Cornette is talking about Crockett/NWA whos biggest star is ric flair, one of the most over the top heels ever.
People all knew it was fake but they watch it for the same reason they watch days of our lives, even though its fake. They get caught up in the story lines and it has the feel of a real life show when youre there. Its like watching a play, when youre in the audience you are fully invested. Whereas, if you watching it on tv, you arent as invested, but you can get caught up in the angles. "I wanna see what (so and so) does this week"
Im from the south. It was conventional wisdom that wrastlin was fake, but it had its fans. Alot of casual fans and a million or so die hards. Its the same way today, just less casual fans. But thats because the angles are bad and WWE has been exclusively geared towards children since chris benoit killed his family.
I quit watching in 2001 because i felt vince mcmahon was killing the buisness
They always kind of blurred the lines with getting the news involved at times. People were like it’s fake but these guys really hate each other in real life. It kept thinking hey maybe some of it is actually real at the time.
Allegedly there was never a trial innocent until proven guilty
Where did I see it? I'll remember later, but a wrestler was in the ring before (?) a match in a large, filled arena in Dallas. He's talking about JFK and saying: Some people say one person shot him, some people say a bunch of people shot him, I think he took one look around this town and committed suicide.
As a younger fan, the a majority of the old stuff (not all) does not hold up.
YARZ doesn’t hold up? To what standard??
I agree and it is okay..
Oldie?
We've forgot about u.s.w.a. that was amazing wrestling!
agree
USWA was supposed to be the biggest promotion in professional wrestling history.
“Cops always Ruin a good time.” I just died a little
Lol you should watch this with subtitles, it's hilarious
They seem fine to me.
I have got to see that running over footage 😂
The NWA wasn't that much different from the WWF.
When I was a kid. I hated Jim cornette so much but I liked him because he was funny as hell.
Remember when Lady Mystic went up to Gorden Solie with a big shiner , the whole domestic violence angle?
this cohost was truly intolerable
That was a great story about Jerry King and the car and the cops
Cornette curses like his parents just told him yesterday it was improper
Jerry Lawler used to go too far a lot. The Jimmy valiant incident where Jerry call Jimmy a f@ggot was going too far due to children being present and no tape editing to prevent it from being shown. Jerry has a history of bringing wrestlers personal lives out in the open turning promos into shoots when he can't win a verbal battle in those promos. Watch it for yourselves it's all on TH-cam.
Regarding Cornette's commentary on Lawler/Gilbert car incident, and viewers who called police... what part of the game is this?
I was 12 when I saw Sullivan stab Mulligan in the heart (kill the head, and the body dies lol), and nobody in Florida called the police. It was none of my business. If it ain't your business, leave it alone. Who are these meddlesome people?
I can't quite remember if it was blackjack Mulligan, or Bobby the hangman Jaggers, or who, but in one promotion
remember, when they used to sit a heel with a commentator during the match and it was clearly a biased commentary. The heel is commentating on how tough he thinks the opponent in the ring is and then says" he's not like these stinking Von Eric's dying on you all the time"
I was like 😮 yooo
Thanks Vince for turning wrestling into a joke. Your father has disowned you
This sounds like Jim Cornette on NPR
I think that's just the interviewer who sounds NPR-ish!
You can do things to improve wrestling nowadays buuuuuuut you will never EEEEEVER return to what wrestling used to be! Those days are in the history books now.
only way to get better is to do scorch earth policy. rebuild and move on. only think of the future and stop using nostalgia as a crutch.
You're right, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, as Cornette says.
That’s true. Now that we know WWE feeds the lines to their wrestlers, the heels don’t get the heat, the promoter does.
Wrestling is DEAD and never coming back. It's sports entertainment now
TheDTownsend1976 many a day i wished to be a billionaire so i could try just such an idea.
I miss Alice Radley's humor as she plays foil humorously to Jim Cornette
Actually, Eddie Marlin ran the Gilberts out of the studio, and when Eddie Gilbert attacked Marlin, Lawler came out to help, that's when Eddie got in the car, and ran Lawler down.
Lawler got flipped pretty good too. That was scary.
Yes there's Superman lifting the car up in that 1st comic and there's hogan body slamming Andre the giant lol wwe and dc like pb and j
It brings about the question, did Cornette and Lawler really think ECW was crap, it did they really just hate that a guy neither liked (Heyman) took from Memphis wrestling, and got popular with it?
jimbo 2346 Cornette has made peace with Heyman Lawler that's another iconicly Paul has he's glad the violence was tone via head chair shots Cornett said it can be done if done right.
I think Corny in general doesn't like the idea of "The Boys" putting themselves in danger when there is no big payoff.
@@BigEvan96 Corny HATES extreme wrestling, especially when there is little payoff for the talent. He's not opposed to blood, as he's bladed himself, but he doesnt believe the extreme guys have much, or any, talent, which he feels makes the rest of the Wrestling community look bad.
End of the day Jim was never fond of NWA swerve that basically killed the remaining territories
Lawler 5'4" 117 pounds vs Jimmy "can't wrestle" booty woogy valiant
It would be possible today. You'd need real old school dedication but you could do it. In so long as you acted the same in every promotion you went to and outside of them you could establish a reputation as a heel. Basically be a dick to everyone all the time. However the promoters would have to know that you were working a character in and out of the ring. So long as that never broke you could do a TON of old school stuff.
I think he's getting his DC vs Marvel reference bacwards
it depends on the time frame.
No, he doesn't. At least not in the time he probably read them. ;-)
Daven Watts I agre, during that time DC Frank Miller and the dark knight, the watchman and swamp thing with Alan moore.... marvel sucked in the mid 80s, bad reference Jimmy
Jim's referring to 60's Marvel vs 60's DC
no
Always love listening to Alice Radley's sexy voice.
Alice is a goddess
i never liked the lady co host
I liked her voice, that’s about it though.
She sounds like Siri
Who is this broad? It's like listening to someone who's never heard of wrestling with the living encyclopedia
That. Lady asks good questions
Jerry Lawler was not born in Cleveland he was born in Memphis Tennessee they moved to Cleveland when he was about 7 or 8 years old get you facts straight Jim cornette
Dundee looks like Ronnie milsap . can't believe valiant still alive
Yo,is that Alice???
I'm glad you got rid of this co host. It seems like they can't stop interrupting you trying to finish your thoughts or somehow quipping back with an a comment that isn't beneficial to the topic at hand at all.
Not too long after Eddie Graham's death Florida championship Wrestling aired a run in between Mike Graham that I felt was in pretty questionable taste. Gordon Solie was interviewing Mike about how he was doing and Mike was talking about how he was going to win the world title and dedicate it to his dad.Well, The Freebirds show up and Buddy gets in Mike's face saying " Like father like son and then the Freebirds beat him up. It was well done in a way. Everyone was very. Believable but it seemed rather a rather cold hearted exploitive thing to do for an angle. I was quite dissipointed in all parties involved... especially Gordon. Really more sad and creepy given the way Mike died. But again... Very well acted.
I remember that angle like it was yesterday. Bugsy Mcgraw made the save, if I recall. Classic stuff!
Same with when Eddie Guerrero died. Not even a few weeks after his death and his wife is already a main part of the storyline.
Edge paid Michael Hayes back in his own coin when he casually remarked on Terry Gordy being dead one night in WWE just to draw heat. And it did piss me off.B.W.
Lawler is from CLEVELAND?!?!?
Probably Cleveland, TENNESSEE!
No. Lawler is from Memphis, but his dad took a job in Cleveland, OH. They moved there, then moved back to Memphis.
Explains his (and my) lifelong passion for The Cleveland Browns. Except I've never lived in or even traveled to Ohio...🤣🏈B.W.
I wanna set people on fyre......
Ian rotten.
Jim Neidhart pearl harbors Virgil wearing a white sheet from head to shins... 95
Modern sensibility? Smh. Glad she's gone
Mid south Did what wwc. Did