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Live wrestling - your “one that got away?”


air_raid

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A few mentions of star names doing tours over here, reminded me of my best mate who’s a bit of a casual going to a pubs n clubs tour in 99 with Yokozuna and Fatu. At the signing afterwards, Fatu was telling everyone that he was heading back to the WWF, which Tom and I laughed off when he told me about it, but of course turned out to be true. When Tom got his autograph he said to him “Whatever you do, don’t come back as the Sultan.” He says Fatu acted shocked that he knew before laughing it off and saying “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

Always slightly annoyed me that he got to see Yoko and I didn’t. But I wouldn’t swap, I saw his all time favourite, Mr Perfect, pin Ric Flair with the Perfect Plex.

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5 hours ago, air_raid said:

A few mentions of star names doing tours over here, reminded me of my best mate who’s a bit of a casual going to a pubs n clubs tour in 99 with Yokozuna and Fatu. At the signing afterwards, Fatu was telling everyone that he was heading back to the WWF, which Tom and I laughed off when he told me about it, but of course turned out to be true. When Tom got his autograph he said to him “Whatever you do, don’t come back as the Sultan.” He says Fatu acted shocked that he knew before laughing it off and saying “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

Always slightly annoyed me that he got to see Yoko and I didn’t. But I wouldn’t swap, I saw his all time favourite, Mr Perfect, pin Ric Flair with the Perfect Plex.

Went to one of those Yoko/Fatu shows at the time, although the Fatu appearing at Irvine Magnum Centre was apparently not Rikishi but another one, possibly Sam. Not that I realised it at the time.

Us kids main concern was wondering if the gym's double doors were wide enough for Yoko to walk through (they were). Incidentally Yoko and Fatu lost via DQ to Drew McDonald (I think) and "Henrik the Viking".

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In terms of what you'd consider 'big' names, the ones missing for me are Hogan, and then any of the top stars of recent years (Roman, Charlotte, Sasha, Bayley, for instance) that didn't really have much of a presence on the indie scene before making it to the top. Probably Bret Hart too, when it comes to actually wrestling (though have seen him make appearances and do speeches to the crowd a handful of times, and got his autograph around by the back gates of the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle).

I thought I was going to get Hogan when he was back active in WWE in 2002, and a UK tour with TV tapings fell right in the middle of his run. Raw was at Birmingham NEC Arena, and they even played a backstage skit on the big screen that made it look like he was there... but he wasn't, it was pretaped, and he didn't come out. I haven't ever bothered with any of the TNA live tours, so missed his last match in Manchester.

I managed to get Sting, Lex Luger, Sabu on the WWA tour in Newcastle. Some 15 or so years later, I'd see Sabu again in Pontefract Town Hall...

I saw "The Undertaker" on my first ever live show, back in 1994. Then, 10 years later at a SmackDown taping in Manchester, I saw the real thing.

I've had all of Rock, Austin, Hall, Nash, Flair, Michaels, Triple-H, Lesnar, Cena, Angle and more on WWF/E cards. Liger was at PCW and RevPro. Tanahashi, Nakamura and Okada all did RevPro too. Misawa and Kobashi were at those Coventry SkyDome supershows. AJ Styles and Kevin Steen were over all the time in the mid-2000s. Kenny Omega I saw twice, nearly a decade apart, both happening to be in Wolverhampton. I was there when Seth Rollins made his only ever pre-WWE UK appearance in Wolverhampton. The likes of El Hijo Del Santo and LA Park have even come over for special events. And even Terry Funk did an appearance for FWA (also at Coventry SkyDome).

I don't consider myself to have 'missed out' on Warrior, Macho Man etc. since they'd already packed it in before I was really getting around to shows. I never saw Roddy Piper, though, and he did do the late-2006 UK tour for WWE as his first matches over here since 1991, but that happened to be the first WWE tour in 5 years or so when I didn't bother going to any of the events.

Yokozuna was supposed to appear in a leisure centre around the corner from where I was working back in 2000, but he pegged it about a week before. Reading the news of his death on the library computer at the time, I went downstairs and nicked the poster from the notice board to mark the occasion...

Edited by Big Benny HG
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