The Rough Book

[JNLister]

(Warning: This post is long, self-indulgent, and contains some shockingly bad schoolboy "humour.")

 

So I was talking to somebody about the WWE Network and suddenly remembered that when I was a kid I wrote down a schedule for an imaginary wrestling channel on Sky. I had a dig through my junk and it turns out I still have it in an old exercise book. Reading through, it's entirely full of random thoughts and notes I wrote about wrestling aged 15-16 in 1992 to 1993.

 

It's not exactly a compelling account of growing up as a wrestling fan in the UK (for that you want the excellent Confessions of a Smart Wrestling Fan) but it's a weird insight into what occupied a weird kid's thoughts in an era that very clearly pre-dated Wikipedia or message boards.

 

Starting at the front, I've "amusingly" drawn a cover as if it were a published book, titled "The Rough Book" (though even more "hilariously", the spine says Romeo and Juliet.) For those lacking my advanced years, a rough book was what we had at school in that time for writing out a first draft of your essays/answers before copying out in best to the subject-specific exercise book -- with a fountain pen for my first year at school.

 

Inside we've got a list of expenses for Spiked Piledriver (the first fanzine I wrote for, which was just about to close) and then my first attempt at a wrestling channel line-up. It's a bit half-hearted and based on Sky's football coverage, with "Goals on Sunday" replaced by "Pins on Sunday" and the intriguing chat show "Locker room with Verne Gagne."

 

Next up is my top 10 WWF matches of 1992, where shockingly Hart-Michaels at Survivor Series takes number one ahead of Hart-Bulldog at SummerSlam. This may explain why I was marking out so hard over the last couple of months to interview both Bret and Shawn.

 

There's also a weird little diagram that compares the head-to-head records of Hart, Michaels, Flair, Savage and Bulldog during 1992. Bret actually comes out ahead with a 3-1 record.

 

There's a plan for a 121 page history of wrestling book, made up mainly of a year-by year guide, profiles of 250 wrestlers, a title history section and a list of facts. I assume PWI saw this before creating their Almanac a few years later.

 

Next we have the first of several attempts at poetry/lyrics, this one being the only serious one. Prepare to cringe.

 

In 1950 [sic] the legend began.

He entered this earth as part of God's plan,

To rescue the world; it was none other than,

The one and only Ric Flair - truly "The Man"

 

It was Buddy Rogers who first used the name,

That could take a man to everlasting fame,

He hung up his boots, but soon along came,

"Nature Boy" Flair, master of the game.

 

Mid-Atlantic, US, tag team -- all his pick

Seven world titles came before he would lick

29 foes with heart, brain and kick,

Just a walk in the park for the awesome "Slick Ric"

 

Inevitably came the moment where,

His opponent was tricked, lured into his lair,

Disposed of at once with hardly a care,

"And here is your winner" the immortal Ri Flair

 

And by the way, it's all his own hair.

 

Appropriately those fine word are followed up with a transcription of the lyrics from WWF Slam Jam where we lean that "everyone wants to pump with the British Bulldog" and that "we're the cream, we work like a team."

 

Then we have the booking for a WWF version of WCW's BattleBowl. I'm not sure if I did a random draw or not because there's a few suspicious foes-as-partners pairings. The best looking matches seen to be Scott Steiner & Ric Flair vs Mr Perfect (listed of course as Curt Hennig) and Samu and (workwise at least) Tatanka & Terry Taylor vs Tito Santana and Marty Jannetty. In the end Flair (who else) beats Bam Bam Bigelow in the final.

 

There's a plan for a Spiked Piledriver annual, which also came to naught. I don't recall what would have happened in the What If features (an idea later used in Hulk Who?) of What If... Jesse Ventura won the WWF title from Hogan and What If... Hogan beat Warrior at WrestleMania 6.

 

Next we have a major project with four pages of rankings and comparisons before I declare the 100 greatest wrestlers of my lifetime. It's fucking weird. It's a combination of technical ability and Apter mag hype. Bear in mind I'd not started tape trading and thus never seen anything before the mid-80s or anything from Japan. No Hogan of course. I hated Hogan.

 

 

We must be moving in to 1993 as I have my predicted line-up for WrestleMania IX. I was bang on the money with Hart-Yokozuna, Gonzales-Undertaker, Crush-Doink and Luger-Hennig (not Perfect, that was a silly fake name.) However, not all the TV build-up was finely pitched as I was anticipating Money Inc-Steiners, Michaels-Jannetty, Headhunters vs Nasty Boys, Bigelow vs Typhoon, Savage vs Lawler and Beverly Brothers-High Energy. I think my card would have been better.

 

Then we have the weekend schedule for my second attempt at a wrestling channel, which was mainly contemporary stuff in an era with many more promotions around. With news on the hour, it was as follows:

 

Saturday

 

6am: Sitcom (not sure what as this was before Rumble), channel open

7am: British wrestling

8am: European Wrestling

9am: WCW Main Event

10am: WWF Superstars

11am: Canadian wrestling

Noon: Wrestling Quiz

12:30pm: News

1pm: Talk Show

2pm: A live wrestling event (house show presumably)

4:30pm WWC

6 pm: LPWA

7pm: News

7:30: WCW Live event

10pm: News

10:30pm: Wrestling Tactics (like the football tactics show on Sky I guess)

11pm: Career History profile

 

Sunday:

 

Midnight: Smoky Mountain

1am: WCW Worldwide

2am: WWF Wrestling Challenge

3am: Classic card (aka Old School on WWE Network)

6am: Sitcom, channel open

7am: USWA

8am: Global

9am: Japan (not sure if this is a live event or just a long weekly TV show)

Noon: Wrestling Quiz

2pm: USWA (repeat?)

3pm: CWUSA (Portland as was)

4pm: Global (repeat?)

5pm: IWCCW

6pm: Smoky Mountain (repeat?)

7pm: News

7:30pm: WWF House Show

10pm : News

10:30pm: Highlights Show

11pm: Career History profile

Midnight: IWCCW (again?)

1am: CWUSA (again?)

2am: WCW Power Hour

3am: WWF Spotlight

4am: Classic Matches

 

Point being, even as the business was collapsing in the early-mid 90s, there was a fuckload of wrestling on TV in America.

 

We have a list of allegedly amusing sign ideas including "Ico-Pro Doesn't Work", "Is It A Stoat?" (a spectacularly obscure reference to a Mary Whitehouse Experience sketch misunderstanding the idea of badger baiting), "Yokokina" (you know, cos he used to be Kokina Maximus) and "Revelations 3:12 (or whatever") which was a badly-researched reference to the bit where Jacob wrestles an angel. It was also a spoof on the popularity of John 3:16 signs at sporting events, an idea that may have been better developed elsewhere in later years.

 

There's an unexplained list of matches that seems to be some sort of fantasy Smoky Mountain/USWA megashow with WWF involvement. Double main-event with Lawler-Hennig for the USWA title and Tony Anthony-Tim Horner for the SMW title. I like the look of Moondogs-Heavenly Bodies, Bruise Brothers-Rock 'n' Roll Express and Brian Christopher-Bill Dundee. I'm not so keen on Nightstalker vs Ron Garvin, Bushwhackers vs American Eagles or Orient Express vs Jeff Gaylord & Mister Hughes.

 

There's some sort of thing with complicated maths and bookmaker odds with the WrestleMania 9 line-up, the most notable point of which is that I was under the clear impression Jerry Lawler was wrestling Tenyru on the show.

 

Next up is my first attempts to piece together wrestling history using the ratings and video adverts from Apter mags, this one being the way all the territories merged during the Crockett expansion. Apart from mixing up Continental (Alabama) with Portland, and thinking Memphis was called Mid-Southern (because that's how it was listed in the ratings) it's pretty much on the money. Wikipedia killed this kind of fun for kids.

 

 

There's a list of places you could buy stuff from such as fanzines. Highlights include the intriguing "Louise Adams' grab bag" and the fact you could buy photos from a guy called Steve Pendle, who is now retired veteran Stevie Knight.

 

 

 

Then we have the first of the supremely witty parody songs, this one responding to media allegations about Hulk Hogan's drug habits:

 

When you come crashing down and you're in great harm,

You gotta get a needle and stick it in your arm,

If you found my friends, then you done a good job,

Wanna buy some of this, it's just twenty-five bob

 

I am a blatant drug addict,

Fight for crack legalisation,

I am a blatant drug addict,

Fight for what's right, drug parties all night

 

I can't distinguish between right and left,

And I can't take punishment for very long,

I've for something deep inside of me,

It ain't Ico-Pro; Who said HIV?

 

Yeah, take that. And there's more as I turn my attention to the Dustin Rhodes. Now, I might not have known how wrestling worked, and I might not really have got to grips with the whole booking idea, but I did somehow know that Dusty Rhodes was the matchmaker for WCW and that this could benefit his son, the reigning US champion. In fact at a WCW show in 1993 while Dustin was selling for Maxx Payne, I showed off the knowledge by shouting out "Your dad chose this match!"

 

Anyhow, I present:

 

Ameeeeericaaaaaaan Champion

 

He's just a common lad,

Who got a favour from his dad

He's just a common lad,

Who's father made him very glad

 

Hey, he's Ameeeeericaaaaaaan Champion

Hey, he's Ameeeeericaaaaaaan Champion

 

If you are black or white,

Dusty's offspring, that's all right,

Despite not having any skills,

He gave his dad some crisp new bills

 

Hey, he's Ameeeeericaaaaaaan Champion

Hey, he's Ameeeeericaaaaaaan Champion

 

Note the confusing manner in which the allegation changes from nepotism to bribery...

 

We have a plan for a 64 man tournament, though no booking. Seems to be a true worldwide event as it has everyone from Danny Collins to Johnny Hotbody to "Mr Onita" to Nikita Koloff. There's also a budget that includes everything from arena hire to promotion to hotels and travel and even $100,000 for insurance. The wrestlers get $1,000 if they lose in the first round, rising up to $1 million for the winner. It's OK though, because I'm going to sell sponsorship, sell 150,000 tickets at an average $35 across eight shows, run the second-round onwards on pay-per-view, make a profit, pay tax (take that Starbucks) and wind up with $10,454,100.

 

Who's in?

 

The next page has a list of Bret Hart's title defences during his first reign, presumably taken from PWI weekly. He defended in 39 times against 12 people, an average of one defense every 4.46 days. Flair got the most shots, 12, followed by Bigelow on 10.

 

There's also a list of every WWF champion's reign calculated in days, including cumulatively for multiple champions. It's exactly the same as the one now on Wikipedia, except with "Wanker" and "Scum" instead of Warrior and Hogan.

 

There's also a transcript of Flair's promo after winning the Royal Rumble. Remember that fact as evidence when voting in the UKFF's Favourite Promo poll.

 

The next page has a totally inexplicable list:

 

Nightstalker

LA Gore

Johnny Wildside

Patriot

Joel Deaton

Mike Doggendorf

 

Not a Scoobie's. Though Gore and Doggendorf have ticks if that helps.

 

There's a list of fictional odds for King of the Ring 1993. In my head I put

Edited March 6, 2014 by JNLister

[JNLister]

KOTR 93 is back again, this time with what looks to be the results of a computer simulation I'd coded in BBC Basic. This time Bret Hart and Razor Ramon go to a time limit draw and Hennig wins the whole thing beating Tatanka with a small package in the final at 10:04.

 

It gets really weird next. I think it's a record of my games and strategy in a computer management game of the 1986 World Cup, but it must have allowed you to create players as my first XI is Peter Shilton, Stuart Pearce, Bret Hart, Steve McMahon, Bryan Robson, Chris Waddle, Rick Rude, John Barnes, Gary Lineker, Peter Beardsley and Ric Flair.

 

More probability maths next with the SummerSlam 93 line-up and a list of numbers that correlate to weight in pounds, height in inches, something marked E and something marked F, leading to a score out of 100 which I appear to have used to create random numbers. Whatever the methodology, it has Hennig and Luger winning the titles, so screw that. Rather disturbingly there's a reference to an expected eight-man tag with the Quebecers partnering Well Dunn, but in the final line-up I only had room to type "Twats and Gays." But which is which?

 

After a chart trying to make sense of the weight divisions in different boxing promotions, I survey Pro Wrestling Illustrated, WWF Magazine and Spiked Piledriver, breaking it down the page count by news, views, featured, other, paid ads, in-house ads and photos. Oddly wrestling, maths and media analysis was not a hit with the ladies of Stevenage.

 

After the actual SummerSlam and Survivor Series 93 results, there's an initial fantasy plan for travelling round the US for 10 days, visiting shows in Memphis, Atlanta, Greenville and New York. Going all that way and only seeing four shows? Lol.

 

We have a WCW Survivor Series line-up. Main event of Flair, Anderson, Pillman and Anderson vs Rude, Austin, Regal and Roma looks OK, albeit with slightly more Andersons than actually existed. Opener of Scorpio, Bagwell and the Coles vs Slazenger, Pierce and the Nasty Boys, not so much. But in reality, BattleBowl 93 was even worse.

 

 

After a brief pause to list all 50 US states and capital cities, we have yet another superb parody song, this time imparting the wisdom that Scott Hall was merely playing a role as Razor Ramon.

 

When they come crashing down in the Razor's Edge,

My momma's standing up there, balanced on a ledge,

She's so depressed at my lack of pride,

I used to love the states, but I've let it slide

 

I am really an American

No way am I a f**king Cuban Man

I am really am an American

I can't stand it any more, it's like lying to your wife

 

I feel strong about right and wrong,

And this damn lie has gone on too long,

It's so annoying, it's getting to me,

I even lost to the Kid, 1.2.3.

 

I am really an American

No way am I a f**king Cuban Man

I am really am an American

I can't stand it any more, it's like lying to your wife

 

We have some sort of budget which is in deficit, the biggest problem being that I get

[King Pitcos]

Brilliant read. When people talk about The Office being cringeworthy but compelling, I don't really get it, I just find it funny. But this is that kind of thing for me. Makes me cringe with embarrassment and recognition of my own childhood, makes me laugh, but had me hooked.

 

air_raid should repost his embarrassing wrestling childhood stuff in here too. I'd throw some of mine in if I could find the books, I did come across them a few years back and I'm about 80% sure I didn't throw them out. Just a load of fucking nonsense, dry play by play reports on imaginary matches and feuds. I think my Power Ranger/Mortal Kombat/Tomb Raider/Street Fighter/Battle Arena Toshinden/Tobal No. 1/Highlander fanfic (guest starring any other characters I could cut out of a games magazine and pritt-stick onto a page to illustrate the story) is all lost to the sands of time though.

[Up Chuck]

I'm sure I have a bunch of stuff like this, probably centred around my super-intricate wrestling figure booking, but it wasn't a patch on this. If nothing else, Lister, it set you up for a life of writing absolutely shitloads of words.

 

I do recall doing full results sheets for my figures, including illustrations of the key moments using one of those nifty four-colour clicky pens. It being the Attitude Era, black obviously ran out pretty quickly. I probably still have a bunch of those things with blue, green and red still half full.

[JNLister]

Funny timing that -- somebody was writing about seeing Giant Haystacks against King Kendo/Lloyd Ryan at Croydon with the finish being the heels using a foreign object, Haystacks getting hold of it, and then unfairly being DQed. I remembered that I was at that show and the deadly weapon was in fact a giant eight-colour pen with some electrical tape wrapped around the colour selecter sliders.

[windoesnot]

KOTR 93 is back again, this time with what looks to be the results of a computer simulation I'd coded in BBC Basic.

 

Clearly influenced by Michael Wallstreet and Miss York then

[JNLister]

I don't think it was this one, but I wrote this awesome wrestling show simulator on the BBC. It was basically Fighting Fantasy maths for the combat: each wrestler had a stamina level which was reduced when you took a hit. Each "round" was a comparison of a random number out of a maximum of your skill (which was fixed) and your remaining stamina, so momentum was important but skill and luck could prevail. The winner of the round did a move (randomly selected from a list and did damage. You got pinned when damage hit zero.

 

I know it basically sounds like maths, but it was all in the presentation, by which I mean Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon introduced the show (in text form) from a randomly selected venue, did the commentary, then shilled WWF ice cream bars.

[tiger_rick]

Great read.

 

I loved been a kid. We did the usual wrestling figure promotion. We got banned from wrestling figures once though, can't remember why, so we'd make a list of 30 wrestlers on a sheet of paper, cut them all up and put them in an egg cup. Then we'd draw out a name which meant he'd been chucked out of the Royal Rumble. Then another name to say who chucked him out (that one would then go back in). Then we'd draw the next elimination which would almost always be the previous eliminator because he'd been put back on the top. If someone's favourite came out, an argument would ensue as they tried to put him back in. Often we'd never finish because the argument would turn into a punch up and that'd turn into the three of us getting sent to our bedroom or booted out to play!

 

We also had that WWF Challenge board game. But we decided it was shit so we kept the cards and made our own board. We also made a Road To the WWF Title board game that was good. Off topic but I made an Only Fools and Horses board game that was epic. Once they asked my little brother at school what his favourite game was and he said that. Proud moment.

 

Got flashbacks reading Lister's appalling songs to some truly horrendous efforts we wrote for theme music for our figures. We also rewrote Slam Jam with lyrics so appalling Milli Vanilli wouldn't even have stolen them.

[Dirty Eddie]

Great read.

 

We also had that WWF Challenge board game. But we decided it was shit so we kept the cards and made our own board.

 

 

Yep, I totally did that too. Probably made about 5 new covers for the back of the official board with updated rosters year by year from about 92-95 or there abouts - obviously with new cards and all that as well. Spent ages drawing out all the characters on the squares with my mate, doing a few each. I recall that he had me try and draw over and correct his Double J picture, as it looked far more like Dolly Parton.

[air_raid]

air_raid should repost his embarrassing wrestling childhood stuff in here too.

 

Only because you asked for it..... although I've been fairly loose about "childhood" here....

 

Rather than recount my Hasbro fed stuff (again) here's some stuff I might not have gone over before, a couple of memories and some info about the artifacts of my embarrassing childhood knocking about. Grabbed some little snaps for you, click to enlarge (oo-er) in some cases.

 

My own trading cards

 

I created crude paper trading cards of matches that I had done in my Hasbro fed and coloured them in with felt tips. One I remember vividly is Mr Perfect with Rick Martel in the PerfectPlex which I copied from a photo in WWF Magazine of Perfect doing it to a jobber and then coloured the trunks in pink. They all had terribly cheesy captions inspired by the old SummerSlam 92 trading cards which featured such gems as "The British Bulldog unleashed every move in his arsenal against Bret "Hitman" Hart." Me and my mate Chris also made our own WWF Top Trumps with incredibly subjective ratings for things like strength, speed and skill, the only undeniable aspect being "number of titles held." Embarrassingly at the point we made them, I was only up to the "Hart Foundation" era, and I thought we should put "reverse neckbreaker" for Bret's finisher, only to have Chris tell me his finish was the Sharpshooter, which I had no idea what that was. But I gave it 9/10 anyway.

 

Backyard Wrestling - The Undertaker VS errr... Savio Vega

 

Basically my best mate and I had a match in the back garden which we filmed on my dad's camcorder. It was sat on a deck chair facing the trees in my garden with the area directly in front of the trees as the ring. I angled the camera so the slabs between house and grass would mark the edge of the frame to the right and used a hosepipe to do the same on the left. I sat my CD player next to the deck chair to do the entrance music. I was using the Full Metal album, but I'd by lying if I said I could remember what music I used to enter the "ring" in my role as Savio Vega. No, it wasn't "With My Baby Tonight," I'd remember if it was! My mate was second in as The Undertaker, so what happened was that the music (whatever music it was) played for "Savio" and once I was in the ring my mate turned the CD off. I just drifted out of the shot so I could scuttle round and operate the CD player, then once my mate was in the shot, I knocked Graveyard Symphony off and drifted back into shot for the match to start. I don't remember how we dressed my mate to look like Undertaker except he entered wearing my red towel dressing gown, and I'm guessing some kind of hat, but you've definitely never seen "Savio Vega" as a chubby lad with a big floppy fringe wearing a white polo shirt and black Addidas trackies.

 

The match itself was a lot of punching, choking and kicking (Tom was curiously unwilling to let me dropkick him, which I definitely could do despite being about 20 stone at the time) until "The Undertaker" kicked out of a cheeky Tombstone from Savio, bounced off the invisible ropes (which looked an absolute treat) and smashed Vega with his flying clothesline. He sat up, then delivered a chokeslam for the three. I was impressed at the height I got jumping in the air to make it look like he was properly smashing me. Then I rolled quickly out of the frame so I could start Undertaker's music again, obviously. Horrifically embarrassing, and I'm pretty sure I still have the little camcorder tape knocking about somewhere.

 

I don't know why I was Savio. I could have been fucking anyone, it was 100% "Undertaker"'s match.

 

Red wrestling folder

 

This thing started life as my Year 7 French folder but it became the "Wrestling Log" as written on the spine in Tipp-Ex and on the front cover in a crap attempt at duplicating the WrestleMania style of lettering. It's got a few explosions and tank doodles on it but mostly logos in black pen or Tipp-Ex - the old WWF logo, a WCW logo, an nWo logo or seven, SuperBrawl, Fall Brawl, the big four logos, In Your House (?), a big fat Hitman "flying skull on heart" logo, what I think is a crude attempt at a Rock "Brahma Bull," and curiously a couple of "HHHs" although I don't remember being that into him as a teen. There is also a single Tipp-Ex nWo logo where I've gone over the red with black pen to create the full effect, that must have been a really crap lesson. Oh, and a really embarrassing logo of a C with a sword through it. Something to do with me and my playground mates being "The Clique" or something.

 

Front : Back :

 

There isn't anything particularly fascinating about the contents, mostly title histories and tape results in a combination of hand-written and printed, with an occasional random smattering of England football results, though there are a couple of amusing things. There is a list from an episode of "Best of Nitro" * that aired on TNT was actually more like "several Hulk Hogan matches," written down on a page pulled out of - YES! - a "rough book." You can see "NO FINISH" scrawled across the "VS" in the Savage/Hogan title match as for some reason TNT neglected to show the actual pinfall, but underneath in my childlike scribble I have written "Also invaluable footage of Sting's return, the insurgence of the nWo and the formation of the Wolfpack." I used to have this need to dress anything up like I was trying to make it sound amazing, even if it was only for my amusement. These days of course, no way would I manage such sloppy chronology as that description did. There are also some grabs of a tape labelled "Fall 1998" (ugh) ** which I made for Tom comprised of WWF matches he requested, and boy is there some dross on there. Duane Gil vs Marc Mero or Val Venis vs Tiger Ali Singh, anyone?? Also there is a "Best of 1998" tape *** mostly including Raw and Nitro matches between May and September, but also mysteriously HBK v HHH from the Christmas Raw, and a Syxx/Misterio match from May '97. Fabulously random.

 

* ** ***

 

I got a B in French.

 

My very own wrestling fed.

 

This is the most embarrassing wrestling thing I have, probably the most embarrassing thing in the history of my life. I'd done daft make-believe feds since virtually the week of WrestleMania IX with daft names based on my friends' school nicknames. One of my main events was Herr Snape vs Buff Thacker, years before Marcus Bagwell called himself Buff. For some reason in Year 10 it went around that Thacker had no pubes, so everyone called him Buff. I don't know why, really. So in my fed, he was Buff too. I almost got a lamping when Newby found out I'd given him the gimmick of "Rodney" due to his resemblance to the Trotter played by Nicholas Lyndhurst. Anyway, inside an unassuming ring binder is the early history of my greatest/lamest fed, started initially in conjuction with my best mate. TScW... fuck me, there is some right cringe in here. Everything from using real wrestlers (and random celebrities) to stealing faction names. Being colour-blind doesn't help, but look at my shitty graphics for the Heavyweight, tag team, TV and Cruiserweight titles :

 

 

I actually quite like my stupid Hell In A Cell logo although I don't know why I drew the wires that held the Cell up in the rafters before it was lowered.

 

 

The full spiel is pretty terrible :

 

"(TScW Extreme Champion) The Freak VS (Challenger) Mankind

A Hell In A Cell match for the Extreme Championship with Barbed Wire wrapped around the ropes and thumb tacks covering the ring. Should Mankind lose, he will leave TScW."

 

I'm fairly sure Mankind lost, but returned the next month as Cactus Jack, as the mystery opponent for Kommissioner Kidman. Other undercard delights as I flip through the pages include two of my mates fighting Matt LeBlanc and Matt Perry from Friends, and Tom's college tutor vs Prince Naseem Hamed. The lineups get even more embarrassing when my PC upgrade furnished me with a scanner and the pages get embellished with scans from our Year 11 school photo and pictures from Power Slam of the Godfather to represent my mate with a pimp gimmick, and of Kidman to represent himself. Oh, and one of Courtney Cox off the front of a Friends tape, as two of the midcarders were feuding over her.

 

The amount of time I took over this shit was ludicrous. Look at this graphic I knocked up while we were being "taken over" by the nWo, and the over the top bracket I made for our first womens title tournament.

 

 

Without doubt my favourite bit of nonsense is this match which I had completely forgotten about - a six-person tag match with my mate Richard, a girl called Laura he fancied at college, and Anna Kournikova VS my mate Ian, a girl called Debbie he fancied at college, and Britney Spears. WORKRATE.

 

The Refsteiner-O-Matic

 

Here is a diagram my strange mate Howard drew of the robot ref that he felt would eliminate outside interference in WWF matches. As you can see, he's a giant fat bloke with a shotgun who stands about 20 feet tall and whose girth fills up a quarter of the ring.

 

 

That's about all I have lying around, apart from my 1993 sticker album where I have updated the title histories in felt tip. Amusingly Luger's page says "1 x WWF" because I learned at Youth Club that "The Narcissist came out of the sky in a helicopter and he powerslammed Yokozuna and he pinned Yokozuna and now he's the WWF Champion."

 

I did not touch a girl's breast until I was 19. It's easy to see why.

Edited March 29, 2014 by air_raid

[Sergio Mendacious]

I did not touch a girl's breast until I was 19. It's easy to see why.

 

I'm going to assume it's because none of them earned the right to be touched by you, because this is awesome stuff.

 

I wish I had the ability to apply myself even 10% as much as this. The furthest I went was disassembling a few Apter mags, and then painstakingly blu tac'ing them all around the room - walls, ceiling, the lot. Looked cracking, and I kept on top of keeping it all from falling down... whilst awake. Of course, the night came when the disaster struck at night, and one loose corner started a chain reaction that lead to the whole edifice falling on my head, along with all of the spiders that had taken up residence behind.

 

Outside of that, I wish that I still had the initial written list for the promotion I started work on when I was ten or so, and am still idly working on in my head now. I'm sure Rex and Behemoth were the initial rivals, and it's now grown to several promotions, 25 years of reasonably well defined timeline, and plenty of pre and post stuff as well. All in my head. That's how lazy and stupid I am - I've never written any more of it down, I don't think, except for one post on here.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Bill Diarrhea

[JNLister]

The furthest I went was disassembling a few Apter mags, and then painstakingly blu tac'ing them all around the room - walls, ceiling, the lot.

 

My wall was full of pictures of people like Steve Williams and the Road Warriors (buff but hairy and in leather) and one picture of Cindy Crawford, to which my mum noted "She's not a wrestle." That ratio changed dramatically over time, particularly when I got to uni. I recall Manami Toyota was the bridge between the two sections.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

I chucked most of my books out. And the ones I do have, I cant possibly let anyone see them. Its stuff like "Austin vs Trent Acid - SummerSlam. Slyk Wagner Brown runs in setting up a feud between Brown/Austin" and shite like that. Just horrendous stuff. I have got this, though.

 

Here's me on Christmas day of 1991. Hulkamania totally running wild in our house. I honestly never had that off for what seemed like 18 months. As you can see, I was letting my hair grow so I'd have a substantial back woft for selling if anyone threw down in the play ground. I'm not exaggerating, I had that bandana and wore it until my head was to big for it. I loved it so much. It had Python Power wrote on it.

 

This was Halloween. DIY as fuck, just have a look at that bastard. The hat is from early 90s cartoon Little Dracula. I'm wearing the jacket my Mam went to funerals in, my school jumper and a pair of washing up gloves. You cant see it but I've actually drawn a picture of Paul Bearer on the pumpkin in black marker.

 

Here's another one of the Man From The Darkside. Just have a look at that. I've actually tucked my trousers into my socks to give it that grey covering feel that the Undertaker used to have when he first debuted. Never remembered him carrying a pumpkin, though. As you can see, I'm summoning the powers from my Creatures of the Night with my right hand, hoping the lottery winners give my more than the usual 20 pence.

 

My wrestling obsession never stopped at Christmas and Halloween, when you can get away with that sort of thing. Check out this birthday cake if you can. Its got Hulk Hogan and the Big Boss Man in the middle of a candle cage match. You see, I have such a love for that match, if I do get married, the lass is going the have to strap on a goatee and a blue dress shirt for the first dance. And her dad is going to have to black up and come out to Jive Soul Bro when he's giving her away. Those little cake figures were reused several times. I wish I still had them.

 

Being a sad act continued into my teens. When you leave school, you all write messages on each others shirts to encourage each other in later life. Among messages from our Geordie Technology teacher which read "what's the time? Its 5 past Schmeichel", I found this. If you cant read it, it says "Three hours later, Jake was doing crack". We were all big into Beyond the Mat, at the time.

 

I've got rid of almost all of my VHS tapes, but there's two I cant come to terms with throwing out. This one for sure. Just look at it. "Wrestling clips", because my Mam wasn't quite sure what the fuck WWF Mania was called and PHIL COLLINS DAY! Why would I throw this video out?

 

And this fucker. There's a long story on this. I was after No Holds Barred for years. Pre-ebay, I had no idea where to get it. I used to phone HMV to ask if they had it on the system. They only had a adult film called No Holes Barred and as intrigued as I was, I couldn't have swung my Mam around to paying 16 quid for it. So one afternoon, me and my mates Mam went to Blockbuster in Roker. He wanted to rent Attitude. When we got there, it was out. The lad was gutted. Tears streaming down his face and all sorts. Then I saw it. Shining out among some shite 1980s films. No Holds Barred. I asked the lads Mam "you couldn't rent that for me please, could you?" Which she did. And we did the old thing of copying it with two records and taking it back. The thing for me is, it took me years to get it, I cant mentally give it up. Even though I own No Holds Barred on VHS in 2 different covers and the DVD of release of it, I still cant throw this out.

 

And we came full circle, with this Hulkamania shirt. I got my first shag in this. Literally, in the sense that, I wasn't getting my tits out on the first date. She wasn't that lucky. It was a fine day in our college. She wanted to wait until we'd went to the pictures that night, but I said "that doesn't work for me, brother". You never forget your first time, as they say. And I was happy to be wearing such a wonderful outfit (I never wore that leather jacket. I just wanted to look cool in front of you lads, showing off my cracking bit of leather). I swear, anytime I hook the Hulkamania logo onto myself, I have nothing but fun times. I take Citalopram just to get me through the day in 2014. I'm thinking of just sticking my toe into Hogan's Beach Shop and Hulking the fuck up on them.

 

No Hogan of course. I hated Hogan.

He's not exactly a fan of yours either.

Edited March 6, 2014 by IANdrewDiceClay

[PowerButchi]

While I was hopelessly addicted to all forms of American Wrestling action from the age of 4 back in 1989 I never used to write anything down really, or bother with own federations and stuff. I was all about one man I created. A wrestler to end all wrestlers:

 

TUNNELMAN

 

By day he was a hard working man working in tunnels, but by night he'd enter the ring with his torch, yellow hard hat, and in hindsight really gay moustache to take on his arch nemesis Troutman who used to be a fish or was a fisherman or something. I dunno, I was 4. My 6 years elder brother would encourage my burdgeoning imagination as regards Tunnelman by making me "play" wrestling with him and I had to be Tunnelman as he'd proceed to beat the absolute shit out of me for 10 to 20 minutes and locking in the stiffest Boston Crabs a 6 year old has ever had to take before graciously allowing me to win with a flash schoolboy knowing that letting me win would mean I wouldn't cry, or tell mum. Handy hint: When your much older, bigger and more pubed brother has you in the Human Torture Rack laughing maniacally as you can feel your back breaking he'll soon put you down if you piss yourself. My brother never grew out of these shenanigans. When I first started going clubbing at 15 I walked home from school very happy about the fact I'd be cutting a rug drinking bottles of Metz to Shakira in Club XS that night. I opened the door to hear my brother shouting "TIME TO PLAY THE GAME! DUNUNUN DUNUNUN!" before he kicked me full pelt in the stomach and gave me a Pedigree full on the kitchen tiles resulting in a pretty fucked nose and everyone out that night looking at me like a dickhead. I also managed to put a three inch splinter through my hand when I was about 6 or 7 pretending to be Hacksaw Jim Duggan waving around some old fence panelling like a total breast chanting USA.

 

Happier childhood memories are the christmas of 1991, when pretty much every single thing I recieved was branded The Simpsons or Hulk Hogan. I was obsessed. And, like Ian, I've also parked the pink bus clad in the Red and yellow. I got a blozzer watching the snooker wearing the Hulk Hogan "Change" TNA shirt. Hulkster is an aphrodisiac.

Edited March 6, 2014 by PowerButchi