JNLister

Yeah, it was an inner-ear infection which screwed up his balance.Funniest thing was that it was never mentioned on WWF TV, but Sky referred to it during a promo for The Main Event.

Probably won't get this one but what where Smash (Barry Darsow) and Ax (Bill Eadie) doing in other feds in the run-up to when they joined the WWF?e.g. What feds did they wrestle before they arrived in 1987.

Smash had been Krusher Kruschev, working in Mid-Atlantic and then Mid-South, from where he was poached.Ax was Masked Superstar, who'd previously been in the WWWF in the early 80s. Last I can think of seeing him was Georgia in 83/84ish, but I don't know where he was immediately before joining Demolition.

Back on topic. As a matter of personal interest, what wrestlers have had full formal ballet training? I've seen a clip of some American guy and heard about a British guy but can't remember names.

I don't know about formal training, but Riki Starr was supposedly a ballet dancer. He worked in Britain and the US, and is probably the guy you saw on tape.On a somewhat smaller level of fame, there was a ballet dancer on the UK Faking It show who had to bluff at being a wrestler. He did an NWA-UK match as the Highwayman.

According to Russell Plummer (the voice of British Wrestlecall and a long-time writer and historian):"I am sure the biggest crowd for a British promotion was at Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart Lane football ground around 1949/1950 when just short of 14,000 saw Bert Assirati face the French Angel Maurice Tillet. "

Does anybody have the skivvy on what Dan Maff did to Homicide?

Phoned him up and agreed to work an angle with him.

The show wasn't specifically because of SummerSlam being in the UK. In the days of the four PPVs a year, they always had a special show before each one on the USA network. Full results of the relevant taping (from www.historyofthewwe.com):

WWF @ Nashville, TN - August 11, 1992 (7,500)Wrestling Challenge taping:Summer Slam Spectacular - 8/23/92:Ric Flair (w/ Mr. Perfect) defeated Tito Santana via submission with the figure-4 at around 16:30Tatanka pinned Kato with the Samoan Drop at 8:40Nailz defeated Ken Wayne via submission with a choke hold at 3:48The Nasty Boys (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated WWF World Champion Randy Savage & the Ultimate Warrior via count-out at around the 12-minute mark following interference from Ric Flair and Mr. Perfect and after Savage was hit in the head with Hart's megaphone; after the bout, Warrior chased Flair and Perfect backstage while Savage fought off the Nasty BoysRick Martel defeated Joey Maggs via submission with the Boston Crab at 2:43; during the match, Sensational Sherri came ringside in a flowing pink dress to watch Martel; when Martel noticed her at ringside, he winked at her - with her doing the same to him moments laterKamala (w/ Harvey Wippleman & Kimchee) pinned Burt Stiles with a splash at 2:31Ted Dibiase & IRS defeated the Bushwhackers when IRS scored the pin with a roll up at 5:49WWF IC Champion Bret Hart defeated Skinner via submission with the Sharpshooter at 5:52 (Bret the Hitman Hart - His Greatest Matches 93)Prime Time Wrestling - 9/14/92: Sgt. Slaughter fought Nailz to a no contest when Nailz brutally attacked Slaughter with the ring bell, nightstick, and steel chairs; after the bout, Slaughter was carried off on a stretcher (Slaughter's last match until 1997)

It won't be on Sky Sports, but should air round the clock on Sky Box Office for several days after the event, so you'll have plenty of chances to watch at a sensible time.

No, it happened. It was in the build-up to WrestleMania IX.

Collins retired with a knee injury.Eurosport showed stuff from CWA (Austria/Germany). Some of these matches were also shows on Reslo on S4C (Welsh Channel 4).

From www.thehistoryofwwe.com:He debuted at a taping on June 6, 1989. His last match was October 7, 1989, with substitutes taking his place after that. He then returned on 31 December but only stuck around for two dates.

Why is a hold never broken when they reach the ropes? as far as I was aware, if someone grabbed the ropes, the hold should automatically be broken, but instead they just drag them centre ring and the hold remains, it bugs me ... never used to happen, dammit!!

It's never been explicitly explained, but since Angle-Lesnar at SummerSlam 2003, the rule seems to be that you don't have to break the hold just because the opponent grabs the ropes. However, the ref will start a count and if he gets to five and the opponent is still holding the ropes, you are DQed. If you break away from the ropes, the ref will/can stop the count.

Taking a note from that interview jeff Jarrett does every week. What the hell is a Double-A ball player? (refers to Monty Brown)

I'm assuming double-A means "All American".

I thought that, but Tenay always reacts like it's the biggest insult in the world? Unless All-American means he's a college player?

The lower leagues in baseball (the ones below Major League Baseball) are called A, AA and AAA (AAA being the lowest). There's a huge gap in status between the divisions, probably bigger than between our Premiership and League.The letters don't stand for anything, it's just a variation on 1st/2nd/3rd division.

Sounds like Rob Bartlett, who was co-host for the first few months.

 

IMDB profile: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0058891/

That was just a one night deal, as Steamboat/Smith/Von Erich had a six-man coming up at SummerSlam, so they needed some 'name' opponents to get a win over to build them up as a team.Not sure why Sato left, though I'd guess ill-health or retirement as he'd have been getting on then. (He was actually on the first All Japan show in 1972!)

My question: Which show was the infamous Sid "Can we do over?"/"No, Sid, we're live." promo?

I *think* it's IYH 12 (December 96 where he headlined against Bret Hart).Alternatively, it's on WWF's Funniest Moments.

They used Weathered for a video about the entire crew, focusing on the toil of life on the road - it was all "energetic man in ring"/"cut to knackered looking man backstage."

I'm slowly working my way through Chokehold which is a great read showing the depths at which the NWA went to in order to keep things 'proper' in relation to outlaw promotions and blacklisting of wrestlers. From this, I was wondering what was attempted to try and quash Vince's nationalisation of the WWF? Surely they didn't just let him expand into territories which weren't his own, or did they? My knowledge of this subject is very poor so I'm not sure even if the question is a valid one, but can anyone provide a rough summary of what went down?

The first few places he 'expanded' to, such as Northern California, had been abandoned by their NWA promoters, so there weren't any real problems at first. Once he started running direct opposition, a lot of promoters wrongly guessed he'd overspend and go bust, so they didn't react as quickly as they should.The first real 'fightback' was Pro Wrestling USA, which was a loose coalition between Jim Crockett (Carolinas and later Georgia), Verne Gagne (AWA) and Carlos Colon (Puerto Rico), which tried running shows in the greater New York area. These did OK at first but they couldn't draw regularly, and couldn't work together.In most of the towns were WWF ran 'opposition', they only did well in 84/85 where the local territory was already struggling or had folded. In places with strong local groups, WWF didn't draw well at first. For example, the closed-circuit broadcast of the first WrestleMania was cancelled in Memphis after they only sold seven tickets in advance! And a lot of Vince's early tactics (buying out TV slots, getting mainstream attention through MTV and New York, getting on NBC) didn't necessarily involve direct competition, so it made it a lot harder to fight back with cartel tactics.The main tool the NWA had to fight back - the TBS slots owned by Georgia - wound up with Vince for a while (after he bought out Georgia from underneath Ole Anderson) and when a messy legal situation was resolved, it wound up with Jim Crockett controlling his own group, plus Georgia, and having all the TBS airtime. He soon stopped any serious attempts to support his fellow NWA promoters, particularly by withholding the NWA champion Ric Flair from most bookings outside his area, and started buying out other areas such as St Louis, Florida and Mid-South (UWF). (Both UWF and World Class had attempted to go national during what the media saw as a wrestling boom, but both failed.)All that was then left of any note outside of McMahon and Crockett was AWA, Memphis and World Class (Dallas). These three groups tried working together, to different degrees of formality, but everyone was out to scam everyone else, and they all started dropping off. AWA was still technically going until the start of 1991, but for the last few years it didn't really have any life outside taping TV for ESPN. Jerry Jarrett of Memphis bought out Dallas, and Memphis survived (like a cockroach) until 1997, but only on a very low-budget scale.By the end of 1988, when Turner bought out Crockett, it was pretty much a two horse race nationally.So to answer the original question, it was a case of:* promoters being slow off the mark to respond;* promoters not trusting each other or working together well (without the single leadership that WWF had);* Jim Crockett seeing where the land lay and making sure he got as big as possible, regardless of his 'NWA principles'; and* some of the stronger NWA groups thinking they could compete nationally and burning out.EDIT - I forgot to mention that NWA President Sam Muchnick had stepped down a couple of years before Vince started expansion. He'd been the real powerhouse/unifying influence on the alliance, so without him the individual promoters were far more likely to pursue their own interests.

Just thinking, could people (yes, including me!) quote the original question before giving an answer, just to avoid the thread getting too confusing?

There was also a Kevin Nash rehab video to 'My Sacrifice'.However, this may not have been 100% official.

There's also another variation on the origin of mark (which probably comes from the same people), by which hobos who went from door to door asking for food and shelter would, if they got treated well, leave a mark on the gatepost so that fellow hobos would know the household was an easy touch.

Why do we have welterweight and not light-middleweight?

Because in boxing, you have the straightforward lower divisions (middle/welter/light/feather/bantam/fly), and then one in between each of them. Depending on the governing body, it's either 'super' the one below (so middleweight, super-welterweight, welterweight, super-lightweight) or junior the one above (so middleweight, junior-middleweight, welterweight, junior-welterweight).Anyway, to get to the point, if there was a light-middleweight, it would theoretically be in between middle and welter.

I am aware of the term 'kayfabe' and what it means, but where did it originate from?

Kayfabe is impossible to track down for certain as (for obvious reasons) there's no written evidence of its early use.It appears to be a corruption of pig Latin. This involves putting the first syllable at the end of a word and following it with 'ay'. Or isthay volvesinay uttingpat the irstfay yllablesay at the end of an ordway.Fake would become ke-fay, which could conceivably have been corrupted over time kayfabe.There are other stories about it being based on someone's name, but there's no evidence to support this.It almost certainly comes from the carnival days (where 'beat the wrestler' was among the scam sideshow games), as the only other place its been heard is among people who have descended from carnival families.

BVD is, I think, a Japanese company that sponsors New Japan heavily.Weight divisions:UK:Heavyweight: No weight limitMid-Heavyweight: 209 lbs limitLight-Heavyweight: 198lbs limitHeavy-Middleweight: 187lbs limitMiddleweight: 176lbs limitWelterweight: 165lbs limitLightweight: 154lbs limitJapan:Heavyweight: 220lbs and aboveJunior-heavyweight: 228lbs limitLight-heavyweight: 190lbs limitW/WWF/E:Heavyweight: No weight limitLight-heavyweight: 225lbs limitWCW:Heavyweight: No weight limitLight-heavyweight (1991-92): 234lbs limitCruiserweight (1996-2001): 225 lbs limitNWA:Heavyweight: No weight limitJunior-heavyweight: 190lbs limitLight-heavyweight: 175lbs limitMiddleweight: 160lbs limitUFC:Heavyweight: 265lbs limitLight-heavyweight: 205lbs limitMiddleweight: 185lbs limitWelterweight: 170lbs limitLight-weight: 155lbs limit(Also recognises super-heavyweight (265+), featherweight (145 max), bantamweight (135 max) and flyweight (under 125) divisions but does not promote matches.)

To find out my nomination, buy the next edition of Plancha.

So has Benjamin 'broken out' this year in the sense that he's no longer the obscure figure he was in his 2003 days of retaining the tag titles at WrestleMania in front of 55,000 people?

All the UKFF specific awards nominees are chosen by the administrators rather than through the formal nomination threads. (Though this year they've e-mailed all paid members to survey opinions.)It makes sense to do it this way as otherwise you'd have member A nominate member B for dolt of the year, member B reply with an insult, and the nominations thread would crash amidst a 50 page flame war.