Screen Caps from WWF Shotgun Saturday Night 1-04-1997
“MEMORY LANE” EPISODE #1 – Featuring a Steel Cage Main Event
CUE OPENING VIDEO
How cool was that? Bears, women wrestling in mud, fire, tables, snakes, mummies, and an unfiltered “Macho Man” Randy Savage. People give ECW the props for being Hardcore, but the reality of it is, true “hardcore” wrestling was perfected many years earlier in places like Memphis, Knoxville….and the ICW… The video above was from the opening of Angelo Poffo’s ICW Wrestling program which ran from the late 70’s into the early 80’s. The ICW was an “outlaw” promotion, meaning they weren’t affiliated with the NWA. Owned by Angelo Poffo, and featuring his sons Lanny and of course “Macho Man” Randy Savage, among other talents such as Ron Garvin, Bob Orton, The One Man Gang, and Bob Roop to name a few. Each week we’ll open up Memory Lane, much like an episode of your favorite wrestling program, with a nostalgic look at wrestling intro videos of years gone by. What better way to kick things off than with some Macho Madness… Ooh yeah!
Every week here on Memory Lane we’ll be bringing you the complete package of what a wrestling program was all about. You’ll have your opening video, your segment of the week, an interview or two, you can’t forget a good old-fashioned squash match, and of course a feature match to close the show!
Now… Onto the action!!!
SEGMENT OF THE WEEK
Our very first segment of the week features the man who made the term “excess flesh” a household catchphrase… or maybe not, though Bob did love using those words when given the chance to perform color commentary. When you want to learn to wrestle today, you pay someone, and they train you. Sometimes you find a good trainer, sometimes you pay a back yarder, but at the end of the day they attempt to train you. Well, back in the “old school” days things weren’t so cut and dry. You’ve heard the stories of Hiro Matsuda breaking the leg of Hulk Hogan, or the Andersons taking peoples money and crippling them with no intention of training, and then there was the case of “Mad Dog” Buzz Sawyer who simply took people’s money (like the Undertaker) and just left town. We can throw this video somewhere in between the Andersons & Matsuda way of “training”. Here’s a young guy attempting to break into the rasslin’ business, all he has to do is make it through former Olympic wrestler, and all around tough guy, Bob Roop. But instead of seeing what the guy had to offer, Roop decides to show him that wrestling is REAL. Watch as Roop breaks the guy’s arm and the young man screams in pain. Still not sure what purposely breaking human being’s body parts does for anyone, if it makes you feel like a man, or what the deal is. Anyway, here’s Roop prior to a taping at Championship Wrestling from Florida teaching a young man a “lesson” about the business.
Ya know, maybe the guy went on to get married, have some kids, and hold down a career… But probably not… Wonder if he ever got full rotation back in that arm?
SQUASH OF THE WEEK
It’s the greatest Tag Team to ever come out of Shaker Heights, Ohio! Beau & Blake, the Beverly Brothers. Actually, you may also know them as Wayne Bloom & “Mean” Mike Enos. Nevertheless, the Beverly Brothers had one of the most dangerous double team finishers of all time, especially if you didn’t know how to take the move. Dubbed “The Shaker Heights Spike”, Blake would throw the opponent into the air and Beau would grab them by their head and seemingly spike them into the mat. Now this wasn’t the safest of moves to begin with, but imagine what happens when you take a nose dive into the mat with this move! Watch as the Beverlys battle Tony Ulysses and Nick Danger. Danger, was the right word. And if damn near breaking his neck wasn’t enough for one night, the Beverlys have some extracurricular fun with “Danger” after the match. Check it out!
INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK
Of all the legendary masked stars in professional wrestling, who is the first you think of? The Destroyer, The Spoiler, Mr. Wrestling #2? For those new generation fans, maybe it’s Rey Misterio Jr. or El Generico? Well let me introduce you to an unsung hero of the masked man community. His name, The Golden Terror! Now this guy isn’t to be confused with the other 47 Golden Terrors that have graced the squared circle since the 1920’s. This particular Golden Terror was none other than jobber extraordinaire “The Duke of Dorchester” Pete Doherty. The Duke had a lot of fun with this character, and though the Terror was never much of a threat, he was quite amusing in the ring with silly antics and Pre-JT Smith clumsy bumps. (Old ECW reference there) The Terror was so intriguing that even Capt. Lou Albano couldn’t resist but to manage him for a short cup of coffee. Here’s the Capt. and the Terror being interviewed by Vince McMahon from the late 70’s. Watch Vince’s reaction when Albano says the Terror is a suplex artist. Albano’s response in reply is classic, too. If only the Golden Terror had stuck around, he had his cult followers, both back then, and now.
FEATURE MATCH OF THE WEEK
Well we promised you a Cage Match for the main event, and now we must deliver. Everyone knows about the shark cage in wrestling. You know, the mini-cage a wrestler or manager would be placed in, sometimes elevated above the ring, in order to prevent interference. It was all the rave of the 1980’s. Well imagine the exact opposite! TWO men being “locked” inside a small shark cage to battle it out. The goal? To escape the cage! You’d think whoever had their back to the door should win this thing in a matter of seconds, no? Well if you thought that, you’d be wrong. So here we go with, to the best of my knowledge, the first and ONLY Shark Cage match in the history of wrestling. And there’s good reason why, just watch and see. It’s Chief Jay Strongbow taking on “Bulldog” Don Kent from the Sheik’s old Detroit promotion. I believe the year is 1977.
What a match ladies and gentlemen! Now that’s when wrestling was wrestling. These two guys, well past their primes, went out there in a ridiculous gimmick match and milked it for SEVEN MINUTES. Yes, the match sucked, but the fans were entertained. Nowadays you give two guys a 20 x 20 ring and they fall flat with the crowd in 2 minutes. Some say it’s the crowds impatience, some say it’s that workers don’t comprehend psychology anymore. Personally, I say it’s a little of both. But how about that match? Huh? Huh? I promise, next week I’ll find you something with a little more action. That shouldn’t be too hard to do, eh?
Well, I hope you enjoyed episode #1 of “Memory Lane”. I’m open to ideas so feel free to send in your picks or comment below!
Kevin Nash Comments on WWE Network
Kevin Nash recently spoke on the announcement of the WWE Network. Here are the highlights…
“To me, it’s an interesting concept. My only thing is they’re such a media savvy (corporation), and I just don’t know how many people have smart TVs. I just don’t want to watch “WrestleMania” on a laptop. I’m just hoping they’re able to keep their contacts with Direct (DirecTV) and with the other people — the people who don’t want to watch, the old-school people who don’t watch Hulu or anything else. Your old-standard NBC people still have a chance to see Mania. There’s definitely not a lack of genius in the business model they put together. I think they’re ahead of the curve. People are going to second guess this, and then, they will go “Wow.” Think they wanted to originally try and do what Oprah did. When they saw she wasn’t having success, they said let’s try to change the business model. My son doesn’t want TV. He’s 17. He’s all online. I think when you look at their target demographic is, nobody in America can get the 14-22 demographic to watch television. That’s a demographic people are trying to grab. If you can grab them online with this network, that’s a home run. Nobody can touch this “Call of Duty” crew.”
DDP discusses Warrior in Hall of Fame before Jake Roberts & The Macho Man
Wrestling legend Diamond Dallas Page joined Doug Mortman and Dave Lagreca on this week’s Busted Open radio show, which you can hear on satellite radio on SiriusXM Channel 92. Here are some highlights of what he said about:
If The Ultimate Warrior is a Hall of Famer: “Are you kidding me? Abso-f**king-lutely. I mean you have to look at how guys drew. And there are fans that don’t like the Warrior. There are plenty of fans that don’t like Diamond Dallas Page. I get that. And the people who don’t like him, really don’t like him. But the people who love the Warrior; they f**king love the Warrior. And that was really obvious when we did in New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia–they can be the most critical fans on the planet. Me and Jake Roberts we smoked through autographs while we were there for those couple of days, but Warrior and Hogan came in and were doing the 100 to 150 dollar autograph thing and that line went out the door all day long. So you say what you want about Warrior, but the cat is true. He brought his energy. He brought a dynamic to wrestling at that time that was original. And I wasn’t a big fan of his interviews but people fricking loved them! People loved that guy. I was a Jake Roberts guy back in the ‘80’s, so I skate more that way.”
His thoughts on Warrior going in before Jake Roberts & Randy Savage: “Well I think in Randy’s case, I think Randy he was pissed. I don’t think he really wanted to go in. That’s just my observation from a far. I never heard that from Randy but I’m sure now that the great Randy Savage has passed on, at some point he will be put in there. But I think there was–you have to accept. You have to go there and show up. And there was some heat there. And I think it was just about to get fixed too, just like the Warrior had a lot of heat there. I think he absolutely would’ve gone in. Maybe this year cause Randy was just coming out–when he died, Randy was just starting to come out. About to do a comic-con and stuff; do some autograph signings and stuff. So I think you would have seen him in there. Right after; not too long after his death, I don’t think it had to happen right away but I would imagine that Randy will be in there. And I believe that Jake Roberts will get in. I think I’ll get in. I think there will be a lot of guys that will get in there from Kevin Nash, Scott Hall. I think a lot of those guys will get in. Sometimes it just takes time and I think that Jake doing his turn around that he’s done over these last 16-17 months–or 16 months I think it is–people are buzzing everywhere about Jake. So I think at some point, it would be awesome if it was this year but who knows? You never know.”
His thoughts on his involvement with helping Jake Roberts change: “Well you know Jake put all the work in. Jake was at my house today cause he doesn’t know if he’s going to get that call for Rumble. But you know what if he gets it; he’s gonna be ready. If he doesn’t get it, he’ll still be ready. And Jake worked his skin off–he had the flu bad too the last four days. And he came to work out today and I’m like Jake you can come tomorrow and he’s like nope, let’s go. We did about an hour; Jake lasted about 46 minutes. I was proud of him that he fought through it and he’s really done an amazing turn around. And he’s had some serious adversities. When people get a chance to see what we have; the footage that we have for The Resurrection of Jake The Snake. I’ve been doing this documentary for close to 15 or 16 months now. You know that right? We’ve been documenting everything. We put pieces up on DDP TV, if anybody wants to see the trailer that we have for The Resurrection of Jake The Snake. We did that the first three months. We’re about to open up with another one of Jake’s that is coming up right around in the next couple of weeks. And it will really–it’ll give you goosebumps. And there is so much–my guys; I got five guys working. I’m a production company more than anything now. DDP yoga is the center piece but everything is happening around from Scott Hall to Cody Hall, who was rookie of the year according to (Dave) Meltzer’s sheet. I didn’t see that but that’s legitimate as it gets. But Cody got out there because of DDP TV and what we put out there with him and Scott and everything. It’s just been awesome. I got my editors; I’ve got five of them. And there’s two guys that are new and they’re going through our footage like oh my god I can’t believe you have this. This is going to be a completely different movie than Beyond The Mat. This is about the resurrection of a legend.”
Doing DDP Yoga on WWE TV: “Well I got to say first of all; no one and I repeat no one puts anything on Vince McMahon’s TV without his okay. And I’ve had people say to me so what do you think about Vince McMahon trying to ruin your career with the whole stalker thing, blah, blah, blah. Over the years, right? Anything that anyone thought cause I made a lot of those decisions myself and they were stupid decisions by me. Anyone who ever thinks that there has ever been anything between Vince and me or whatever and I’ve always told everyone; no, there’s not. What Vince did for me two Monday’s ago with DDP Yoga was–he couldn’t have given me a better angle. He couldn’t have given me a better spot. He let me go on there for a minute and a half. It was written into the copy! They gave it to me. I didn’t pick up the DVD’s and do that. That was written for me. “Wear your shirt.” Hunter told me do the foot over the head, that always blows people away. You know I was like okay! I expected to be in something but I didn’t expect it to be what it was. And to have Booker T involved too, who is one of my good buddies. Cause he’s the one guy from WCW who really got over. He’s a five time World Champion and he got the strap there. So bottom line is to be able to do it with him and then have Ron (Simmons) come out; it was just–we did so many takes of it, every one was funnier than the next. I had liked the last one the best but there were other ones that were laugh your ass off funny. And we just had a blast. And Ron said (DDP imitating his voice), “Man, Diamond they’re really working you today. This one’s gonna be a shameless plug but you working for that s**t today…DAMN.”
SPOILER on Sting’s Future in TNA / WWE
If you read next week’s TNA Spoilers then you already know Sting was written out of TNA storylines as part of the “Genesis Night 2” event vs. Magnus. Sting faced Magnus in a high-stakes match for the TNA World Championship. With a lot of interference, Magnus got the win and retained his title. After the match, Magnus tore up Sting’s TNA contract, effectively writing him off television.
As reported earlier this week, Sting has actually been working for TNA without a contract – and has been in talks with WWE regarding a match at WrestleMania XXX.
“Stone Cold” says he’d Like to be at WrestleMania XXX
On his podcast yesterday, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was asked if there are any plans for him to appear as part of the WrestleMania XXX event in New Orleans on April 6th. Austin said that he’d like to be in New Orleans for WrestleMania weekend, mainly to conduct some face to face interviews with the WWE Superstars and Hall of Fame legends who will be in town. As for appearing the WrestleMania XXX show in a “formal capacity,” Austin said, “I am not committed to anything of that nature yet.”
You can bet that once WWE gets wind of this, they’ll be in contact with him. More as we get it.
