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OT: Favorite Pro Wrestlers for the 70's early 80's

RocktheRac

Heisman Winner
Sep 10, 2001
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Enough of this basketball nonsense. A group of us after the game were talking about the upcoming Wrestling promotion at the RAC with Mick Foley and with Sgt. Slaughter last year.

Who used to watch this in the late 70's and early 80's? Used to watch after Racing from Rooservelt.

Who is you Top 10 wrestlers? I'm talking the old timers when wrestling was real...lol. Blood, salt thrown in the eyes, sleeper holds.

1.George the Animal Steele: Green tongue, ate the fuzz out of the turnbuckle pad
2. Andre the Giant : 7'4 520 lbs from Grenoble France undefeated for 13 years. Fear of snakes
3. The Grand Wizard of Wrestling: Never wrestled but was a manager for Mr. Fuji, Patt Patterson and The Iron Sheik. Famous for his wrap around sunglasses and colorful turbans.
4. Fabulous Moolah: First woman to wrestle at MSG and first woman WWF Champion. Was in feud with fellow wrestler Wendy Reicter who paired with Cindy Lauper which started the Rock n wrestling connection.
5. Jesse The Body Ventura: Flashy "villain" with the slogan Win if you can, Lose if you must, But always cheat . Was a single wrestle and WWF tag Team Champ with Adrian Adonis. Later became Governor of Minnesota
6.Brutus The Barber Beefcake: Was WWF Tag Team Champ with Greg The Hammer Valentine. After putting his opponent in a sleeper hold he would take hedge shears and cut their hair off.
7.Macho Man Randy Savage : Managed by his real life Elizabeth. Was second in power to Hulk Hogan. Used the slogan Ohhh Yeaa.
8. The Wild Samoans: Managed by Captain Lou Albano these 2 brothers Alpha and Sika wrestled as a tag team. Never spoke during interviews only grunted and known for nose picking and eating raw fish while being interviewed.
9. Mr Fuji / Prof Tanaka: managed by Grand Wizard of Wrestling. Known for throwing salt in opponents eyes
10. Billy Graham Superstar : Flamboyant with colorful capes. Was a villain and lost to "All American:" Bob Backlund. Wanted to be a good guy but Vince McMahon said no.
 
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Grew up with WWF during this time. George T. A. S. was by far my favorite. Macho Man #2. Snap into a Slim Jim! #3 Chief J. Strongbow, and Billy White Wolf, tag team. #4 Ivan Kolov (sp?), #5 Fuji and Tanaka, #6 Gorilla Monsoon, saw him fight Ali on TV (a boxer can beat a wrastler!) #7 Bam Bam Bigelow. Saw him in Newark Airport a couple of years before his death.

Managers were awesome. Great charaters.
 
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Grew up with WWF during this time. George T. A. S. was by far my favorite. Macho Man #2. Snap into a Slim Jim! #3 Chief J. Strongbow, and Billy White Wolf, tag team. #4 Ivan Kolov (sp?), #5 Fuji and Tanaka, #6 Gorilla Monsoon, saw him fight Ali on TV (a boxer can beat a wrastler!)

Managers were awesome. Great charaters.
Ivan Putski- polish power you may be thinking. I always joke the most crushing sports loss of my younger years was not the 73 Mets loss but when Chief Jay and Biloy white wolf lost the title to the Blackjacks. Foot was on the rope!!!
 
Was Blackjack Mulligan part of the Blackjacks? He used a nasty brain claw he applied to squeeze blood out of his opponents temple
 
The conversation starts and ends with:


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Haystacks Calhoun and Tony Garea who's son played LB for Rutgers.
 
nobody better than Piper with the mic

Macho Man was my favorite

local note ,Tito Santana owns (don't know if still open) a salon in Roxbury NJ, and told he used to frequent often.

anybody follow the Supefly Snuka murder case? I think they finally pinned him.
 
Already mentioned - Somoans with Albano, Superfly Snuka, Chief Jay and Jules Youngblood, Putski and Mr. Fugi (my little sister took the salt a few times)

New : The Rock Don Muraco, the other Rock's dad - Rocky Johnson, The American Dream Dusty Rhodes and Cowboy Bob Orton
 
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Snuka, Hulk, Rhodes, Sting, Macho Man, Ricky Steamboat, Putski

Seeing Snuka do the Superfly at a Piscataway High School event in the early 80s was one of my favorite childhood memories.
 
The Indian who did the war dance before bouts.Lots of good memories watching wrestling.My grandfather was a big fan.
 
I wasn't born till '80, so didn't really follow any wrestling until late '80s through '90s...I remember having action figures of Hulk Hogan and Junkyard Dog as a kid.
 
I go back to when wrestling was on TV 3x or more a week - "Bedlam from Boston", something from DC and even an armory in NYC. Antonio Rocca and his famous bare foot kick to the head - a precursor to the MMA. The infamous submission hold: Killer Kowalsk's claw..

Wrestling was huge before the WWF. Went to only one wrestling gig when at school ('68-'71) in Boston. The Garden was sold out. The Celtics never sold out the Garden until Larry Bird! Back then it looked "real". WWF, with area angles from all sides showed what a farce it was. Albeit, fun entertainment.

i did take my sons to 2 or 3 WWF events in KC since one of my neighbors was a "star" at the time and his son was good friends with my sons. Saw him lose to the Hulk in a steel cage match that he should have won. Was almost completely out if cage (he could have dropped to flor and won) and Hulk grabbed his hair and pulled him back in. Claimed he couldn't drop due to his legs. Nope, the script didn't call for it.
 
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The Indian who did the war dance before bouts.Lots of good memories watching wrestling.My grandfather was a big fan.
That was Strongbow. He also did the dance near the end of the match. Bad guy would be kicking his a$$, then he'd get pissed and start the dance. Would knee the bad guy in the head while he was dancing. Awesome stuff.
Nothing beat George chewing on the turnbuckle pads, and then trying to choke his opponent with it by stuffing it in his mouth.

On a side note, about ten years ago I met Ivan Kolov at a Walmart in Burlington, NC. He was doing a charity fund raiser by signing photos. Real nice guy. Talked with him for about ten minutes.
 
Classic battle of "mortal enemies": Iron Sheik vs Sgt Slaughter, especially due to Iran hostage crisis. Turns out they were best buddies and exposed as such when they were pulled over for speeding on the NJ Turnpike of all places. They were ratted out by the Trooper and not a Soprano wise guy.

Had a friend in NJ tell me the Hulk was going to lse to Macho Man in an upcoming Wrestlemania. Thought he was nuts. Said the rematch was already scheduled. Turns out he saw the promotional stuff for the "rematch" before the match at an ad agency.
 
When I was at RU (late 90's) my buddy was an RA at Pace in Westchester County. He spent all his budget on building social events to entice King Kong Bundy to come give a talk.

It was awesome. We went up on like a Wednesday night and went to this mostly empty lecture hall where he just dished about old school wrestlers and life in WWF to 10-20 guys. Then he went out with us to the local college bar. Good times.

He was living in Glassboro at the time and I think was a school principal.
 
Bruno Sammartino, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Killer Kowalski, Gorilla Monsoon, Buddy Rogers
 
The Road Warriors, Hawk and Animal were my favorite tag team believe they wrestled at Michigan. My all time favorite was the Polish Power Ivan Putski that little guy(compared to other wrestlers) could really put the hurt on them.
 
The Road Warriors, Hawk and Animal were my favorite tag team believe they wrestled at Michigan. My all time favorite was the Polish Power Ivan Putski that little guy(compared to other wrestlers) could really put the hurt on them.

Steiner brothers were the ones who went to Michigan

No love for Ricky Steamboat?
 
Anybody remember S.D. Jones? Good ole Special Delivery would lose every match to a known bad guy opponent either as a single match or tag team - always lost because of incompetent refs or the bad guys cheated. Whenever he beat somebody that somebody would be a nobody.

That was the problem with that era

Essentially every match that was televised was a squash match
 
I went to high school with the Macho Man. Known as Randy Poffo back then. He was on the wrestling team, but in all honesty, he was tall and kind of skinny. His dad, Angie Poffo, was a little guy but was also a pro wrestler. Had bleached blonde hair and often wore a fishnet top to the watch Randy in the matches. We all kind of felt sorry for him as his dad kind of stood out and was a bit of a character.

I didn't know he had turned into the Macho Man until my barber in Somerset told me who he was. I couldn't believe it was the same guy, and when I showed my barber his HS wrestling photo, he couldn't believe it either.
 
I knew someone went there, Thanks. Didn't Lex Luggar go to Oklahoma for football he was one of my favorites as well.

Lex Luger went to Penn State and then Miami. Dr. Death Steve Williams played football and wrestled for Oklahoma. All-American in both sports.
 
Great thread, all my favorites already mentioned, but I was partial to Backlund, Putski and Piper.
I remember staying up late on Sat nights to watch WWF on channel 9.
 
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I went to WrestlemaniaI V when it was held at AC Convention center on the boardwalk in 1988. Some of the wrestlers were hanging at the bar at Trump Plaza. Andre the Gaiant was there drinking a bottle of wine. His hands were huge. I think I saw Hacksaw Jim Duggan Bobbie Heenan Rick Martel to name a few.
 
Great thread, all my favorites already mentioned, but I was partial to Backlund, Putski and Piper.
I remember staying up late on Sat nights to watch WWF on channel 11.
It was on Channel 9. Love those interviews by McMahon.
 
Basically give me the 1992 Royal Rumble and that's all I need. Go down the list and you have all of the greatest of all time. I watched from about 1990-1997 religiously.

Hogan, Flair, Warrior, Heenan, Savage, Hart, Roberts. Fuh-gedda-boudit.
 
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