Dave Reviews Wrestling — page 9

When I became a fan of wrestling while growing up in the nineties, it wasn’t uncommon after the explosion of the WWF in the UK to see smaller video companies releasing wrestling shows on tape to cash in on the popularity. One line of tapes was releases of the IWA wrestling programme International Championship Wrestling. The main promoter was Pedro Martinez, but the money man was Eddie Einhorn, and there was a legitimate attempt to challenge the WWWF with the quality of stars they had, as you’ll see in this funky roll call:

What I love about that video, as mentioned elsewhere, is how Tex McKenzie comes in like a man possessed, then all the life drains out of him in a second.

This episode has just been uploaded to YouTube, so I thought I’d give it a look.

Happy new year! Not that I celebrate it in any sustainable way, anyway. Here’s the go home show for Dixie Dynamite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQR4Rvb_vtQ

Happy new year!

This popped up in my YouTube suggestions, I guess based off the recent Slammy Awards a fortnight or so ago. I’ve never watched this before, but it’s from the peak of my fandom (1997) and was always said to be a legendarily snarky event, so thought I’d give it a look.

I figured as Wally George came up during the review of wrestling on the Morton Downey Jr. Show that I’d have a look at some of the appearances of wrestlers on his show. Wally was a loudmouth ultra-conservative who comes across as a total raspberry-blowing buffoon, but totally knew how to whip up the crowds into a frenzy of uber-patriotic idiocy.

Well, she was definitely making a statement when she picked that title!

One of my first reviews on here was Steve Austin interviewing Hulk Hogan, which was pretty big, but it just doesn’t feel like there are shoot interviews or podcasts that big left to do. That is until you get someone who’s notoriously out of the business and willing to speak their mind like CM Punk.

Full disclosure, I’m not much of a fan of his work, he hasn’t endeared himself to me with his personality and he felt like a guy they pushed for lack of anyone else, a far bigger star in his own mind than anyone else’s. However, I was there through the stories he told on his former friend Colt Cabana’s show of Dr. Z-Pak and a possible encounter with “Mursa”, which even his own doctor wasn’t as full on about (was it a volcano of pus hitting the ceiling or just a dribble?). Those landed him in court, ultimately a winner, but at cost.

So, going into this, I’m prepared for him to be a bit more guarded than before, and I don’t think it’ll be as explosive, but hopefully whatever comes out of it is worth reading and talking about.

Let’s go!

I enjoyed reviewing the Donahue episode on wrestling a few weeks ago, so thought I’d look at the even lower rent version from two or three years prior. I believe this was recorded after his appearance at WrestleMania V. The YouTube version up currently is incomplete, but proceeded with ex-footballer Jim Wilson alleging that by turning down the advances of gay promoter Jim Barnett he was blackballed from wrestling and denied a sure opportunity at being the NWA world heavyweight champion, so I guess we all have James E. to thank posthumously for sparing us that. The first person to rebuke that… We’ll see!

Going to get back into the swing of things next week when I have some time off to watch and review stuff, but I thought I’d warm up by having a re-watch of the wrestling episode of The Toys That Made Us. I have a bit of a gripe with the goofy editing of the show, but it does appeal to areas of interest I’ve been into for a long time, so I forgive it that.

This was filmed in 2019 and seemingly had some cooperation with both WWE and AEW given the clips used and commentators involved.

With much love, Jabroniville scored about a 6.9 on the Richter Scale, but I think I can get us past the 7.0, so HEEERE’S EARTHQUAKE!

I heard rumbling a little while back that Conrad Thompson, mortgage man, podcast impresario and Flair family member, was launching a new podcast separate to anything he was doing with Brother Bruce, Eric Bischoff, Tony Skeevone or Jim Ross. Turns out he’s doing interviews with famous and infamous figures like former Executive Vice President of WCW at the start of the Turner years Jim Herd, who’s in his eighties. The trailer was juicy enough to promise some fun in the main interview, so here it is.

Herd in ’91, revealing that Ric Flair has left WCW:

Herd in ’20, shooting:

Apologies to Scott and Brian for possibly treading on their turf, but when I heard that new episodes of Prime Time were up from the period when I got into wrestling I had to look it up. At this point, it was in the short-lived period with guests and a studio audience, launched around March and dropped not long after this for a panel show format. It was goofy, but I enjoyed it, hence why I carried on watching.

Writing this on the weekend and posting during the week to see if it makes a difference with views. I tried a few different shoots to review but it just wasn’t working, so I’ve gone for this one which is ostensibly Jim interviewing JJ. JJ had written his book Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls around this time, which was very good, and he was open as always to doing interviews to talk about it. Scott reviewed an interview with him that went about five hours back in the day. This ONLY goes three, so it won’t be word-for-word and will be highlights for some things and then greater focus on stuff towards the end of his career.

After a busy week and a few aborted attempts to write some reviews of cartoons, shoot interviews and YouTube compilations, which I might return to another time, I figured I’d have a palate cleanser and review some good old fashioned rasslin’! This is a set produced, published and sold by Jim Cornette via his website, with some more obscure footage. I’m skipping the first disk for now as it’s got four Rock ‘n’ Roll Express matches and two Road Warriors matches and the second disk has a more varied collection of stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS_998dAM4M

I thought I’d have a look at this as it’s a definite historical curiosity and quite controversial at the time.

The setting: The Phil Donahue Show, talk show with an increasing interest on tabloid stories.

The agenda: Discuss the issues regarding possible gay sex abuse/harassment and steroid usage in the WWF with a number of different players from both sides.

The players:

• Phil Donahue – host
• Murray Hodgson – would-be WWF lead announcer
• Vince McMahon – owner of the WWF
• Barry Orton – semi-active pro wrestler
• Tom Hankins – retired pro wrestler
• Dave Meltzer – premier wrestling journalist
• John Arezzi – wrestling radio show host
• Superstar Billy Graham – former WWWF champion, wrestling icon
• Bruno Sammartino – Living Legend, longest-reigning WWWF champion ever

Let’s get to it!

Getting towards the end of my week off, this is an interview from 2016 by Hannibal, who isn’t really a good interviewer, but Ray is an excellent and detailed speaker, so he more than makes up for it. The interview is held at his lovely home in snowy Quebec, with his personalised seaplane down the hill!

Have been wanting to give this a watch again for a while, and as I didn’t post anything last night on the first night of my week off work I figured I’d throw it up alongside the Joe review. Brandi wasn’t a big star, although he worked for WCW and the WWF, but the trailer at the time (circa 2005) was quite juicy, so thought it might be fun to recap.

I’ve been looking at Confessions of the Hitman recently, but this is a DVD from Highspots that I don’t think has ever really received any coverage. This was recorded in the summer of 2005, with Bret mostly recovered from his stroke and making appearances again but not fully back on good terms with WWE.

More with the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. This was pretty easy to do last week and it seemed like people like it, so let’s do this and some animated stuff later.

I’ve had good feedback on my shoot interview recaps before, so I thought I’d have a look at some of the mini-shoots Bret Hart is doing on his website. As he’s charging for them at a dollar each, it doesn’t seem fair game to recap ALL of them, so I thought I’d look at a handful as a teaser.

This is going to be the last Worldwide review for a little while, as this is where Scott is up to with his Saturday Night reviews, so I’m going to sync up with that whenever he posts the next one.

Whatever date this actually aired in the UK, I remember going to Blackpool with my sister and grandparents for a club outing and buying a toy mobile phone. My dad had taped this show for me and when he saw the phone he swiped it off me and went “This is Paul E Dangerously, the manager of the new TV champion, Stunning Steve Austin!” – spoilers, dad! What a jerk!