Today is a day to give thanks. And on this Day of Thanksgiving I am thankful for the Midnight Express. In the holiday spirit of sharing I shall share with you another sweet video. This one is some guy's custom made Midnight Express Titantron video. Come for the copious amounts of Midnight Expressing. Stick around to hear one of the all time great themes. The Midnight Expessing starts at 0:17 and repeats several times throughout this video. Enjoy!

1998

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
*This post is going to be all over the place as I try chronicling all the major happenings throughout the world of basement wrestling in its last major year of existence. I'm going to try finishing up the wrestling part of this tonight. Then I'll be back tomorrow with one final "Where Are They Now?" post. Then hopefully more pics early next week.

We have now entered the home stretch. Rick is in exile. Cousin has replaced him as my USWA co-booker. USWA events have declined to less than one per week due to the distance between Cousin's house and mine (he was only here on occasional weekends, holidays, and summer stretches whereas Rick theoretically could have been here every single day). Brother's SMW put out even fewer shows, with content having slowed to a trickle. But there was still good/memorable stuff. Here is some of that goodness...

Smoking The Spellbinder

This actually goes back a ways to late 1997 and was inspired by/ripped off the Undertaker vs. Kane feud.

Spellbinder (Ax's figure) had been a long time midcarder. He was basically our vaguely supernatural dime store Undertaker who may have had a few brief transitional secondary title runs, but was not at any previous time a Top 10 USWA star. Then came the real life Undertaker/Kane storyline, which enthralled us all. Naturally we wanted to rip off that awesome angle. 'Binder became our "Undertaker" since he was the closest thing we had to a 'Taker character.

At some point in mid-late '97 we scored one last big wrestling figure haul. This is where I think we got Duggan, B. Brian Blair of the Killer Bees, Albano, and a 2nd figure or two to replace our old "injured"/limbless ones. One of these was a second Ax.

This new Ax figure was permanently dusty, or smokey, if you prefer. I don't know if LJN used a different brand of paint on this one, or whether the previous owner kept it in some dust covered enclave for years, but whatever the reason, this new Ax had a very 'worn in' look. This figure had definitely lived a life. The duskiness of this Ax distinguished it from our cleaner (albeit more beaten) original Ax. One day Brother & Cousin caught me washing our new Ax in the basement sink. They were appalled! Ax 2.0's lived in look was part of its appeal. And it was that dirty look which inspired one of our all time greatest characters and non-Lawler storylines......

Spellbinder suddenly became unbeatable. He held some title for a long time. Possibly even the USWA Championship itself. Strange things soon started happening during his matches. Lights would go out, or flicker on and off. Weird laughter would come on over our PA system. This scared everybody. Spellbinder most of all.

At some point it was revealed that Spellbinder had accidentally 'killed' his younger brother in a fire. Some heel manager (probably The Gamesmaster, unless we brought in some new mouthpiece I forgot about) swore up and down that Spellbinder's 'dead' younger brother Smoke was actually still alive. Spellbinder refused to believe these obvious lies.

During some event between Lawlermania 7-9 we did our big HBK vs. Taker w/ Kane Hell In A Cell angle with Spellbinder in the Undertaker role, ? (Lawler? Smith? Boone?) in the HBK role, and the debuting Smoke (Ax 2.0) as Kane.

This feud got over like gangbusters. And is perhaps another reason why Bob Boone Jr. flopped? How is an old school real rassler possibly supposed to compete with an undead badass supernatural demon? At least one of the brothers (possibly both?) had the 'chanting' part of Metallica's The Memory Remains as their theme since we all found it suitably 'creepy.' Thankfully (or not) Bill Newman wasn't around yet. So the idea of using the great Bill Newman's Your Love Is Like Smoke never even crossed my mind. Oh, and to differentiate between the two themes, Smoke's started with some kind of sound effect- rain, thunder, evil laughter, something like that. Smoke's ashy look became part of the storyline. His figure looked the way it did because of the fire that had 'killed' him some 20+ years ago.

The one major difference between this feud and the real life Undertaker/Kane feud was that the heel Smoke dominated. The storyline became "can Spellbinder ever defeat Smoke?" Smoke was everybody's darling. He used Spellbinder's awesomely named Atomic Skullcrusher finisher along with Undertaker & Kane moves. Plus a springboard dropkick for some reason. Spellbinder soon started doing springboard dropkicks too in an attempt to keep up with his brother. If I had to guess how the big matches went.....

Between Lawlermania VIII & Lawlermania IX- Smoke debuts, costing Spellbinder the (USWA?) title.
Lawlermania IX- Smoke defeats Spellbinder in probably our most highly anticipated non-Lawler match ever.
Between Lawlermania's IX-X: Smoke defeats Spellbinder another time or two. Smoke then squashes Dr. Death Steve Williams! Now this almost definitely happened. I'm just not sure when. It was our way of writing Doc out since he was going to real life WWF. The idea of anybody squashing Dr. Death was hitherto unfathomable. He had the best win/loss record in company history. He had only lost like two clean matches ever. But now he had finally met his match in the monstrous Smoke. Smoke then squashes Lawler to win the USWA title.
Lawlermania X- Jerry Lawler hands Smoke his first defeat to regain the title. My colleagues bitch.
Between Lawlermania's X & XI- An angry Smoke destroys everyone and everything.....except Jerry Lawler.....probably.
Lawlermania XI- Spellbinder FINALLY defeats Smoke.
-Between Lawlermania's XI & XII- A truce is declared. The brothers reunite. Spellbinder & Smoke predate the Brothers of Destruction by forming a tag team that was called the Unholy Alliance or something very similar....before the Unholy Alliance was a thing. Yeah, we "invented" the BoD and Unholy Alliance too.
Lawlermania XII- Spellbinder & Smoke likely become the new champs of our stacked tag division (more on that in a bit). 

Oh, and there's one last Smoke story that simply must be told. Always wanting to take things up to 11, I came up with a plan to light something on fire. I don't remember what exactly. I just knew I wanted "Smoke" to light something, or someone on fire.....in the basement  This must have been in Smoke's early days because I recall Rick still being around. Rick & The Gang quickly put the kibosh on my fire idea. "The smoke alarm will go off! Mom and dad will be PISSED! What if the fire gets out of control!" Were all very sound, very logical arguments against my admittedly amazing idea. So I (sadly) never did go through with it. Oh well. Now don't get the wrong idea. I was no pyromaniac! This fire would have been strictly for artistic purposes.

FMW

Honestly, when I think of 1998 basement wrestling, I think of FMW far more than SMW or ECW (which may not even have existed anymore). FMW stood for Full Moon Wrestling. It's gimmick was an even more extreme, even more small time version of ECW. They were 'banned in the state of Tennessee' so they held 'outlaw' shows in a rural Tennessee barn at Midnight.....likely only once a month during the full moon (in storyline only. Because surely we did FMW events whenever we felt like it. Even I wasn't so obsessed with authenticity that I'd wait around for the full moon ). Hence the name Full Moon Wrestling. FMW was just FUN. USWA was Serious Business. None of really cared about our ECW. FMW was right in that sweet spot. It was less serious than the often po-faced USWA but at least we cared about it enough to run storylines and angles and stuff.

FMW's backstory is basically Bill Dundee's ECW 2.0 with Tim Horner in the Dundee role. Horner had been a perennial babyface star in my brother's SMW for over two real time years. Definitely a Top 10 star in SMW history. I mentioned how his SMW was more of an ensemble cast than my USWA. This is true. But if I had to pick the "Jerry Lawler of SMW" it would be Brad Armstrong. Brad was the longtime top face. Brad vs. Jesse James Armstrong was the Bret/Owen of SMW. Brad vs. Doug Gilbert was the (poor man's) Lawler/Dundee of SMW. Brad probably held more championships than any other SMW wrestler. Actually.....I have my brother's SMW notebook right here. Let's take a look....

OK, through 196 events (there couldn't have been many more) Brad held 22 SMW titles. That puts him 2nd only to his longtime nemesis Doug Gilbert, who held 23. Tim Horner held 18 titles, which puts him in 6th place in SMW history. So, yeah, Tim Horner was a big deal in SMW. But he always played 2nd fiddle to his bff Brad Armstrong.....

In early 1998 I bought my first (and only) shoot interview tape. It was a rant from my 80s & 90s hero Jim Cornette recorded at real life SMW's 1995 fan week. On that tape Cornette goes off on Horner for being a jerk who was manipulated by his jezebel of a wife.

And just like that the seeds for what eventually became FMW were planted. Tim Horner's Wife was the only female character to ever 'appear' in our leagues, and she technically didn't even appear since we didn't have any female LJN figures (I think Elizabeth was the only one they ever made and we did not have her figure). But Tim Horner's Wife was an evil offscreen(?) character who poisoned Horner's mind into turning heel, with the logic being that he had always played second fiddle to Brad Armstrong. Brad/Horner briefly became Brother's Lawler/Dundee knockoff feud. Brad beat Horner in a Loser Leaves Town match.

Soon after that the now unhinged Horner founded Full Moon Wrestling. Horner, like his spiritual predecessor Bill Dundee, was now a deranged and dangerous man. He was FMW's top heel and top star. His theme was The Lord Is A Monkey by The Butthole Surfers (a band Cousin got me into along with the mighty Rush). Let's take a look at some of the other big FMW stars.....

Kim Chee (Kamala's figure)- And a Kamala knockoff. Only this was dangerous, badass 86-87 Kamala, and not the joke he would become in the 90s. Chee was either the #2 heel behind Horner or an uncontrollable badass babyface who feuded with Horner. I think he was actually the top babyface who had an epic feud with Horner over who had the better splash. Was it Chee's top rope fat guy version or Horner's bizarre 'only in our basement' levitating "Jacknife Splash?"  Unless....maybe Horner was actually FMW's top face as the Founding Father of Full Moon? Yes, that is possible. Regardless of face/heel aligment, Horner/Chee over the Splash was as big as it got in FMW.

The Fulsams (Hillbilly Jim & Anvil figures)- The top heel tag team. A cross between the Dudleys and Southern Justice character-wise with the Texas Hangmen's offense. "Dirty" Dale and "Fightin'" Phil gave no fucks. The Pride of Texarkana beat the crap out of everyone they came across whether they be heel, face, or fan. They were the lone FMW act who got called up to USWA to bolster our already loaded latter day tag division. In USWA they continued to kick ass and take names. There was once briefly a 3rd Fulsam called "Filthy" Frank (Duggan's figure) but he never really caught on. Their finisher was the Texas Hangmen's Rude Awakening/Diving Axehandle double team combo.

"Beef Stew" Lou Marconi (Bruno's figure) & "Handsome" Frank Stalletto (Ventura's figure? Maybe Orndorff?)- One of our all time great creations. They started out as a jobber team. I don't even think they were face or heel. They were just two guys who lost opening matches to other teams. Their theme music was The Spinners Mighty Love. More specifically the "that's the way love goes" part. We didn't think anything of it. It was literally just a song that happened to be on the radio when we were recording new themes one day. We just gave a whatever theme to a whatever team.

Fast forward a bit. FMW had gotten over enough with us to warrant "TitanTron Cards." Their particular card would be THE masterpiece of the genre. Brother and I were churning out multiple 3/10 cards while Cousin was taking FOREVER on this one card. I was getting annoyed. "What are you doing?" "Why won't you let me see this card you're taking forever on?" I asked. Cousin was hiding his work. I wrote him off with a huffy "whatever" and got back to work. Finally cousin was complete. And this was his masterpiece....



Funniest. Thing. Ever. Instant success resulting in an instant mega push. They soon became the most over act in FMW history as a wildly popular, flamboyantly over the top gay babyface duo. They feuded with the rough & tumble Fulsams, most likely being the ones who forced them to leave town so they could come to USWA.

The Revival

Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder would have been proud of the latter day USWA tag division. Actually, to call it a Revival is more a shout out to Dash & Dawson than an accurate description. To revive implies bringing something back. And the truth is USWA never had a great tag division until those last few Lawlermania's. In the early days it was just the Allied Powers and (New) Rockers trading the titles back and forth. Then it was the Allied Powers trading 'em back and forth some more with a bunch of midcard heel teams. Then it was the English Express doing the same thing. Yep. USWA's tag scene actually peaked in its dying post-Rick days. Let's take a look at the teams who made USWA tag team wrestling great again....

New Breed (Sean Royal- Martel's figure & Todd Champion- Steamboat's figure)- Yet another thing I didn't get quite right. NWA tape binges confirmed the New Breed's existence after years of half-thinking I had imagined the whole thing. But I got my Champion's confused. So it was Todd rather than Chris in my New Breed. And, hell, Chris Champion was initially supposed to be Chris Chavis (Tatanka)!   Yeah, I had my share of screw ups. Anyway, The Champions had been a longtime undercard babyface team. I broke them up to form the New Breed. Somehow it made both Champions way bigger stars than they had ever been before. I'll cover heel Indian pimp with the sweet Call Back Kick finisher and a slick theme Chris Champion tomorrow.

Sean Royal came in around Lawlermania IX or X as at least my 3rd or 4th attempt to create "the perfect wrestler." In this case, that meant giving him all the state of the art moves I could think of. He did Owen's belly to belly on a running opponent, the Pearl River Plunge, future Matt Sydal's sweet moonsault belly to belly superplex move, and Tiger Suplex, just to name a few. His finisher was the 450 Splash. The Shooting Star Press was pretty easy to do with the figures. I probably landed that one properly 70% of the time. However, the 450 only had about a 20% success rate. Martel's figure was the only one I could accurately perform it with on even a semi-regular basis. My inability to land 450 Splashes once lead to a hilarious moment involving Brandon of the Three Brothers. I forget who was wrestling but I kept botching the 450. When we botched a move we would often ignore it as an "Oops!" and repeat it until we got it right. I must have hit 7 botched 450s in this one match. Brandon, who didn't spectate very often, was appalled. "Stop the damn match! You're killing that guy! Dude just got hit with seven 450 Splashes!"  I lost it. Then I explained to Brandon how things worked down here.

Todd Champion suddenly got educated feet when he joined up with Royal after never really exhibiting that skill during our previous 100+ events. For we LOVED educated feet in the basement. Shades of Sweet Stan! Midnight Expressing! Champion also had a sweet tornado DDT (Steamboat's figure was a good one for DDTs of all varieties) and multiple frankensteiner variations.

The New Breed quickly caught fire as a mind-blowing babyface workrate team. Their finisher was either a Champion Tornado DDT or top rope frankensteiner followed by a Royal 450. Oh, and they were sadly NOT from the future in USWA. I had either forgotten about that part of the gimmick or ignored it. The New Breed did win the belts a bunch of times, often trading them with the....

Shooting Stars (Mike Samples- Savage's figure & Flash Flanagan- Ventura's figure)- They'd been around for ages as a midcard 'up and coming' team. Hell, they were actually aligned with Lawler all the way back at Lawlermania I! But it wasn't until the latter day Lawlermania Era they that they finally reached their potential as the New Breed's workrate equals. The Shooting Stars big thing was their DOUBLE SHOOTING STAR PRESS finisher because holy shit! It's a double shooting star press! One following the other. How it took us like 70 events to come up with this very obvious thing to do is beyond me. Like, duh. IT'S RIGHT THERE IN THE NAME! Chances are the double shooting star press idea was my cousin's doing. Anyway, it made them stars. And New Breed vs. Shooting Stars was our 1999 Hardys vs. Edge & Christian respectful workrate feud, only it came in 1998, meaning we "invented" that too. They traded the belts with the Breed a bunch of times. That was great. But things may have been a bit too lovey dovey and handshakey (looks like we invented ROH too!). Something needed to be done. Enter....

PG 13 (JC Ice- Heenan's figure & Wolfie D- Jake's figure)- I mentioned earlier that PG One Three (which is how we often pronounced it) were HUGE in our ECW. Well, that becoming less relevant than ever in our basement circa 1998 meant it was time for PG 13 to finally make the jump up to the big time. PG 13 came in with an immediate mega push based on their ECW history. They may have even had profanity in their theme! A major no no in USWA & SMW, and a rule which I think had only been broken once before by that arch-villain Bill Dundee. PG 13 had the moves of the New Breed & Shooting Stars, and they took it a step further by being unafraid to bend the rules or introduce weapons. They added a heel and hardcore element to what was already the greatest tag team feud we ever had. Their finisher was a JC Ice Butterfly Tornado DDT followed by a Wolfie Le Cannonball (or Swanton if you prefer). Look, I'm not going to say we did TLC Matches (we didn't) but this New Breed/Shooting Stars/PG 13 really was the Hardys/Edge & Christian/Dudleys feud 2 full years before that existed in real life. And it eventually got even better when....

The Fulsams came in to add a pure brawling/hardcore element to all that flying. Sort of like our APA, but heel, and predating the Acolytes.

*All four of these teams were adept at Midnight Expressing and PG 13 (JC Ice in particular) were also instrumental in Bill Dundee's short-lived last run. I'll cover that tomorrow.

Smoke & Spellbinder, the New Texas Outlaws of Bob Boone Jr. & Jimmy Jack Funk, and possibly Butch Winslow & Jeff Gaylord were a few other super teams during this era who may have snuck in a tag title reign or two. The unlikely duo of Ric Titan & Dunn may have also still been around. Maybe The Parsons for a little while as well. If so, those two latter teams would certainly have been on their way down the ladder.

Chris Champion (Snuka's figure)- I have some time. Might as well cover Todd's "brother" tonight. Chris Champion had been around forever. First as basically Tatanka without the big push. Then as the 'leader' of a low card tag team. The Champions amicably split with Todd getting an instant push in the New Breed. I didn't have any plans for Chris. But he ended up getting a sweet 'pimp' theme which lead to a heel pimp/ladies man character and a big heel push. Like brother Todd, his feet magically became educated after their split. His Call Back Kick finisher was one of my favorites. This barefoot character would brush your face the first time (akin to a slap) and then clock you in the head/face on the 'call back.' It's kind of hard to explain but, trust me, it ruled. And it totally fit his ultra-cocky heel character. I don't think he ever won the USWA title by the time we closed up shop, but he was now King of the Midcard Heels picking up secondary titles left and right, and I feel certain that he would have been USWA Champ, and possibly even a Lawlermania headliner had we kept going into '99. 

More Pics!



Caption: Loch Ness bee stings Ace Stevens.



Caption: Jaegar Van Dork flying clotheslines Shirley Crabtree.
Fun Fact: Once I got over the initial surprise I never thought twice about about their being a man named Shirley. Instead I just assumed that was a fairly common name for guys over in England. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

*Whew! This feels like my longest one yet. Not bad for a "dying" territory   And I STILL didn't cover everything I wanted to get to! Tomorrow we'll touch on the new Young Gunns/Lions and Cruiserweight Divisions, our last Invasion, and hopefully those final 3 or 4 Lawlermania's.

I fucking love Handsome Beef Stew's TitanTron card, possibly several times more than I loved Midnight Expresses... which I didn't think was possible. Such good stuff.

Nov 23, 2018 5:59:19 GMT 🤯 said:

I fucking love Handsome Beef Stew's TitanTron card, possibly several times more than I loved Midnight Expresses... which I didn't think was possible. Such good stuff.

GOAT Titantron Card for sure. Now I regret never calling them Handsome Beef Stew. They were just Marconi & Stalletto. What a missed opportunity. 
Also, "Beef Stew" is such a great nickname. Following it with a rhyming Lou only makes it better....or should I say beefier?

*Added two more pics to the end of my last post. Might as well make the most of that 3 attachment limit.

SMW

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}*I hadn't planned on covering my brother's SMW until I wrote about the Brad/Horner feud last night. The way I see it I've already touched on ECW & FMW. Might as well write a bit about SMW too. Especially since that was far bigger than either of those other two feds AND I have a notebook to aid me in this write up.

Brother's SMW actually predates my USWA by a few weeks. Maybe even by a month or two. I mentioned how the big thing SMW wrestlers strove for was capturing the Six Crown. Here are those six titles in order of importance (which meant little to nothing)....

Smoky Mountain, North American (meaning USWA's #3 title was almost surely just the American Title), Mid South, Union, Confederate & Regional. Not the most original set of titles in the world, I admit.

Another quirk of his SMW was that he didn't have tag titles. Instead all the wrestlers would compete in the "yearly" Crockett Cup tournament with the winning team having bragging rights for the next 'year.' We did love our Crockett Cups. The CC was also a seasonal USWA event and our WCW had one as well back when we were still doing that.

Other big SMW events include Volunteer Slam and Fire on the Mountain. Volunteer Slam was their 8 man one night KOTR tournament equivalent with the winner getting a match of his choosing at the next show. Fire on the Mountain was their Wrestlemania equivalent. The top 2 or 3 matches would all be 'Mountain Top Matches' where feuding wrestlers would wrestle on top of a 'mountain' built with boxes, crates, and laundry baskets. To win the match you had to throw your opponent off the mountain. At least 2 fatalities occurred in Mountain Top Matches- Eddie Gilbert & Dick Murdoch when we came up with the "no dead wrestler " rule (USWA Classics was exempt from this due to being a 'historical' promotion). Stan Hansen definitely 'killed' Dick Murdoch when the Texas Outlaws exploded after a decade of terrorizing rings all across the South, and I think it was Brad Armstrong who killed Eddie Gilbert, leading to the legendary Brad vs. Doug Gilbert feud. Bluegrass Brawl & Slamboree (later Jamboree on the Hills- definitely my doing :lol: ) were two other big 'yearly' SMW events I just came across in the notebook.

Oh, and the #1 way to get nuclear heat in SMW was to call the Smoky Mountains themselves 'foothills.' SMW fans HATED that. I'm almost positive it was then-heel Jerry Lawler who invented this ultimate diss, but many wrestlers used it after that to get SMW crowds riled up.

Both USWA & SMW tended to alternate between regular shows and gimmick shows. Winning a big gimmick match (WW3, Lethal Lottery, Volunteer Slam, etc. etc.) would put that wrestler in line for a match of their choosing at the next event. The runners up then usually got their choice of match on down to like the 4th, or even 6th place finisher. It was all very structured. Like I said, Serious Business.

SMW Catches Fire (on the Mountain)

SMW's "Dundee returns!" moment where the promotion went from good to great came at Royal Rumble VII: Event #58 (I know this because I have the notebook right in front of me). I remember this one well. Terry Funk had a match. Married With Children was on in the background. Al Bundy was doing something awesome as usual. Ric Flair's theme started playing on the tv. Terry Funk was wrestling. Uh oh....

We already had our "no WWF or WCW wrestlers rule" in effect.  Brother looked at me for approval with his mouth agape. I nodded in the affirmative, also with my mouth agape. Aww shit. It was on now. RIC F'N FLAIR SHOWED UP IN SMW TO CONFRONT TERRY FUNK!!!!!!!!!!! It was too perfect. We couldn't have scripted this better if we tried. Al Bundy/Terry Funk/Ric Flair= Three Heroes.

Now you have to understand what Ric f'n Flair vs. Terry f'n Funk meant to us in 1996. Basically everything. Like this was literally pro wrestling. If somebody asked us "What is pro wrestling?" We'd have said Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk. Our wrestling Holy Trinity was Flair/Funk/Lawler with Flair & Funk as #1 & #2. Flair vs. Funk was the GOAT feud. Flair vs. Funk at Great American Bash was the GOAT match. And if we had seen the Flair vs. Funk I Quit Match that probably would have been our new GOAT match. We rented tapes every weekend based on two questions- 1. Is Flair on it? and 2. Are the Midnight Express on it? The 1996 PWI Almanac had a quote like "you can't call yourself a real wrestling fan until you've seen Terry Funk live." I took this as gospel. If wrestling was my religion than PWI was my bible and Bill Apter my prophet. So I genuinely believed I wasn't a real wrestling fan until I saw Funk live at Raw in May 1998. Didn't matter how many B & C Shows I watched every week, or how many tapes I rented every weekend, or how much I studied my Apter Mags. I wasn't a REAL wrestling fan until I saw Terry Funk live. PWI said so, and who was I to doubt PWI?

Brother did this neat thing where he kept track of 'attendance' to gauge the health of his promotion. And I know him. He'd have been honest about it. SMW had averaged about 4,000 fans per show up until Flair showed up to "duel" (his words in the notebook) Terry Funk at Event #58. Attendance immediately skyrocketed to 10,000+ for most shows. Flair & Funk waged war in Smoky Mountain rings on and off for the next 11 events. The feud was blown off at Event #69- Volunteer Slam in Louisville, KY drawing 17,000 for a Three Stages of Hell Match (another thing we invented, though we obviously did not use the name) which saw Flair defeat Funk 2-1. Fwiw the rules for the match, clearly stated in the margin of Brother's notebook, were Fall 1: Pinfall-Fall 2: Submission-Fall 3: Escape in a 2/3 Falls Cage Match. That's a Three Stages of Hell imo. 

Flair left SMW after that match due to his WCW commitments, relinquishing whatever title he had just won from Funk. The next event, #70, was a tournament for the vacant belt on a show called Flair For The Gold(!) in Charlotte, NC drawing a very healthy 13,000. 

Here are his Top 10 wrestlers in terms of championships won through 196 Events....

1. Doug Gilbert: 23
2. Brad Armstrong: 22
3. The Patriot: 21
3. Johnny Atlas: 21
5. Dan Spivey: 20
6. Tim Horner: 18
6. Brian Christopher: 18
8. Jerry Lawler: 17
9. Terry Funk: 16
10. Jesse James Armstrong: 12

Doug Gilbert (Beefcake's figure) at #1 surprised me. I figured he'd be Top 5. He started as the #2 babyface. Then he was a Top 3 heel forever. I just never expected him to be THE most decorated wrestler in SMW. As I mentioned, his forever feud with Brad Armstrong was SMW's Lawler vs. Dundee. We were very weird when it came to finishers. Sometimes the lamest stuff would end matches. Then you had guys like Doug Gilbert hitting ridiculous Super Razor's Edges to finish opponents.

Brad Armstrong (Martel & Orndorff's figures) was my guess for #1. He was SMW's perennial top babyface. His feuds with Doug, Jesse James Armstrong, and Tim Horner are probably 3 of the Top 5 in company history. Brad's finisher was the Northern Lights Suplex. Just realized yesterday that he was in real life WCW for the duration of SMW's existence. I guess we waived the rule for him because jobbers don't count? Or maybe Brad was my concession to Brother since I kept Lawler around in my USWA? 
Fun Fact: We initially called it the Northern Right Suplex. Yes, like the whale. After mishearing good ol' JR 

The Patriot (Patera's figure) was a basement darling and a perennial Top 3 babyface in the company. I've mentioned before how I would have pushed Patriot to the moon had I been a real life booker at any point from like 91-96. His gimmick was a patriotic babyface strongman with one very unique wrinkle. He and Brian Christopher had started in SMW together as babyface friends and partners. Christopher soon turned heel. But in a neat twist he remained friends with The Patriot. So these two would often enter (and win) Crockett Cups as an extremely rare heel/face team. BC was a massive jerk....but he'd always save Patriot from heel beatdowns. And Patriot would return the favor by protecting BC from angry babyface mobs in Battle Royals and stuff. Very cool. Always thought this was a genius move on my brother's part and it's something that should have been done more in real life. Has this sort of gimmick EVER been done in real life? I can't recall any situations. I'm pretty sure BC & Patriot eventually did fall out. Probably when BC was going to WWF in real life. But they did the 'heel/face friends' gimmick for well over 100 events by that point.

Johnny Atlas (Ted Arcidi's figure)- Basically The Patriot Jr. He was trained by Tony Atlas and Johnny's personal forever feud came against Dan Spivey because Spivey was the man who put Tony out of wrestling. Johnny Atlas was from Baltimore, which got him cheap pops in the basement. His 'Atlas Bomb' finisher was in the Pearl River Plunge family.

Dan Spivey (Big John Studd's figure)- Not one of my particular favorites. I actually forgot about him being a big SMW star until I talked to Brother about this a month or so ago. Spivey was basically just a generic big man who always bored me, be it in action figure leagues or real life, unless he was teaming with Sid. His big SMW ally was Doug Gilbert. I'm sure they won a Crockett Cup or two.

Tim Horner- (Roddy Piper's figure)- Covered to a large extent yesterday. Brad's partner. Popular high flying fan favorite with a 'levitating' Jacknife Splash finisher. Turned heel on Brad in latter day SMW. Lost a Loser Leaves Town Match to Brad. Founded Full Moon Wrestling.

Brian Christopher (Bret's figure)- Cocky heel who feuded with practically all the top faces other than Patriot and was always in the title mix. Had the aforementioned memorable face/heel tag team with Patriot. Would likely have been a few spots higher if he hadn't left for real life WWF in mid 1997.

Jerry Lawler (King Harley Race's figure)- Started his SMW career as his wimpy chicken shit heel WWF character who lost like 90% of his matches. Then he became a babyface in Memphis only (SMW held about every 8th event in Memphis). Then he became a babyface everywhere as time went on. Easily the most improved wrestler in SMW history, and a man who dominated the middle portion of SMW's history. I think the busiest man in basement wrestling finally got phased out at some point in mid 1997 due to working basically everywhere else.

Terry Funk- The 2nd basement icon in a row. His feud with Flair put SMW on the map and has to be considered a Top 5 feud in SMW history despite its short length. Funk left the promotion after Barely Legal when we added "no ECW wrestlers" to the "no WWF & WCW wrestlers rule." If SMW had a Hall of Fame (and I'm almost positive they eventually did) then Terry Funk (and Ric Flair) would likely have been the first living member(s) inducted.

Jesse James Armstrong (Honky Tonk Man's figure)- The Road Dogg peaked during his SMW stint as the Owen to Brad's Bret. Him making the list at all is impressive given that he left the promotion for WWF in September-October 1996. Had he stuck around he would no doubt be competing with Brad & Doug for the top spot in SMW history.

More Pics

*Included this so you can see the shards of 'glass' from the infamous glass table spot at Lawlermania I



Caption: Lawler watches funk after he was piledrived through a glass table

*This is a good example of the pageantry you'd get at a peak USWA Lawlermania. Lawler had just defeated Jimmy Jack Funk at Lawlermania I. He celebrates atop the turnbuckles. Heel Lawler's sidekick Bill Dundee is on the shoulders of their lackeys so he can be closest to The King. Lawler has the USWA Championship around his shoulder. The Crown is showing. And this is (sadly) the best image I can find of the iconic Lawlermania I poster.



Caption: The Kingdom holding the victorious King

*Here is Smith Hart having his balls "electrocuted" atop the Thunderdome Cage at Lawlermania VI or VII. You can also see some other 'weapons' in the ring.



Caption: Smith finds electrocution after Lawler tied him up on the Thunderdome.

*I was going to post another Titantron Card or two but they're honestly like 90% crap. The only good ones are those my cousin drew and even then nothing is in the same ballpark as that Handsome Beef Stew work of art.

*I got sidetracked on my brother's SMW tonight. No regrets! But now I have a few other things to do. So I might be back to wrap USWA up later tonight, or it might have to wait until tomorrow evening.

No exaggeration, I on and off chuckled to myself about Beef Stew for at least an hour last night.

Alright. Gonna try finishing up the wrestling portion of this tonight. 

Young Guns and Cruiserweights

SPOILER: Click to show

We're now a few months into 1998 and I'm finally on the internet. This means I'm getting more wrestling info than ever. It also means the Second Great Tape Boom is underway..... 

I dip my feet into the Japanese scene. The main effect this has on basement wrestling is Cousin and I doing a bunch of undocumented J Cups when Brother is away (when he was around we'd usually do FMW) and we didn't feel like gearing up for some USWA Serious Business. The undocumented league/show was not at all uncommon. Hell, even the first few USWA events were not recorded in our notebooks. We did a ton of one night only events with random made up wrestlers that were not documented. I'm not even 100% sure FMW was documented. At the very least, it went unrecorded for a while. Anyway, Great Sasuke (Koko B. Ware's figure) won (at least) one of these J Cups. We decided to bring him into USWA for a spell...

My main tapes during this binge were not from Japan, but ECW and my beloved 80s NWA. Those ECW tapes had a ton of impact on me as a fan, but little to no impact at all on USWA. The NWA tapes did have one major impact on a latter day Lawlermania. It was also on one of these tapes that I discovered the GOAT wrestling hype video, GOAT song, and GOAT band all in one fell swoop. Here it is....



Aside from ECW, the main promotions I followed online in 1998 were Memphis-based WWF developmental fed PPW (USWA's real life successor) and California-based indie APW. Both of these feds would have a major impact on latter day USWA. It also helps me date the last Lawlermania to November-December 1998 at the earliest since I didn't really get into APW until that October. It's also worth noting that an undocumented APW fed was the last action figure league I ever did by myself. I'd often come home from college and do a little APW action before work while I had the place to myself  Biggest. Dork. Ever. This would have been late 98-maybe early 99. 

PPW had a title called the Young Guns Championship that was exclusive to young up and coming wrestlers. Both Cousin and I thought this was a cool idea. So we brought it to our USWA. Oh, and the roster also underwent a major overhaul during this period with most of the old (Rick) favorites getting the boot in favor of Cousin's hipper, younger New Style Wrestlers. I also may have called our new championship the Young Lions Title either by accident or so I could feel better about my blatant hackery. Here are the top Young Guns and Cruiserweights.....

Biff Hickerson (Billy Jack's figure)- A 100% Baker creation and my last Golden Boy. The Young Guns title was supposed to become Biff's personal belt until he was ready to move up and become USWA Champion. Cousin had other ideas. More on that later. Anyway, Biff was a local hero babyface from Bucksnort, TN who happened to be the son of USWA Classics low midcarder Phil Hickerson. Biff was also yet another attempt to create The Perfect Wrestler. What's that, my 4th or 5th one? In Biff's case, that meant combining the best of the old school with the best of the new school. He did all your favorite old school Tennessee moves. Yet he also did state of the art stuff like his killer HickPlex finisher. The HickPlex was a full rotation German SUPERplex where the victim would flip over and land on his stomach. I also gave him an epic "Mexican Marching Music" theme. It was.....the intro to Sugar Ray's Stand and Deliver. The bulk of the song is hot garbage but that "Mexican Marching Music" intro is the bee's knees. Now why the Pride of Bucksnort, Tennessee has Mexican Marching Music is beyond me. It was probably yet another attempt to make Biff just the coolest, just the best, just incredible. Cousin hated everything about Biff Hickerson (except for his Mexican Marching Music theme, which no sane person could ever hate). Here is how a conversation between the two of us may have gone....

Me: Why don't you like Biff Hickerson? He's a great NEW STYLE wrestler! He's also the son of "The Hick" Phil Hickerson!
Cousin: Who?
Me: "THE HICK" PHIL HICKERSON!
Cousin: WHO?
Me (sighing): Do you even USWA Classic, bro?
Cousin (equally annoyed): You and Rick stopped doing 2 years ago and, no, I don't remember a Phil Hickerson.
Me (giving up): He was Hillbilly Jim's figure. Lost more than he won. I miss Rick. He was a good booker. Unlike somebody else I know....
Cousin: Whatever. Biff Hickerson is boring. And he sucks. And I have a better idea....

Homocide (JYD's figure)- Yeah, we invented Homicide the wrestler too. We just didn't spell it right   This character was a 100% Cousin creation. He was based on Cousin's favorite show- the Baltimore-based, David Simon written, Homicide: Life on the Street. Cousin's Homocide was basically heel New Jack with wrestling ability. (In other words, real life Homicide before he existed!) Homocide also had a hyper localized Baltimore gimmick right down to coming from one particular street where Cousin and I once had an....experience. Homocide's finisher was called the Zero Bomb. It was an elevated Pedigree. Or Christopher Daniels' Angel's Wings without the sitout. You'd have to ask cousin what the name Zero Bomb meant. I have no idea. Homocide also had a cool secondary finisher called the Missile Headbutt. This one was a diving headbutt to the head of a nearby standing opponent. It's kind of hard to explain. But trust me. It was cool....in action figure league form. But in real life would have resulted in two cracked skulls every single time.

Cousin and I argued a lot over Biff vs. Homocide. Their matches were the most heated on USWA shows. They traded wins nearly every time out. The winner depended on who was doing the match. Even Brother started caring again. He didn't have a dog in the fight. He just liked stirring the pot. Biff vs. Homocide became even more heated than Lawler, Smith, or Boone bouts. Imagine us arguing while you listen to this cool song about Bucksnort, TN.....



Ahh....that Bucksnort state of mind. Huh? What do you mean? Of course I'm not trying to influence you guys in the Biff vs. Homocide feud! That would be cheating! And I'd never cheat!

With the Great Biff vs. Homocide War at an impasse we compromised with a new Young Guns character....

"Triple R" Robertito Roberto Ramirez (Iron Sheik's figure)- This was a character we could both accept in spite of that appalling Spanish. Triple R obviously had a Triple H inspired ring name. His gimmick was basically Latino Val Venis. Or maybe a proto-Alberto Del Rio.... if Del Rio didn't suck. Or Gerardo in the Rico Suave video, which is what I actually based the character on. He was a heel with a Doctor Bomb finisher. He won most of the Young Guns 3 Ways over Homocide & Biff just because neither Cousin or I would let Our Guy lose to the other's Guy.

Kid Wikkid (B. Brian Blair's figure)- I could never decide whether this real life PPW star's name was ridiculous, awesome, or ridiculously awesome. He was the 4th Young Gun in terms of push and success. He also ventured into the Cruiserweight Division as a tweener alongside....

Great Sasuke (Koko's figure)- More of a short-lived special attraction than a USWA full timer. He defended his J Crown in a few special attraction matches before losing to....somebody in a controversial match. The follow up storyline was he only lost one belt from his J Crown in that controversial match but got to keep the others. The belt Sasuke lost would become the USWA Cruiserweight Championship. Sasuke soon went back to Japan on a full time basis, but may have still shown up as a special attraction here and there.

Christian York (Ventura's figure?)- Another thing that dates all this to late 98. I started going to local MCW shows that October and York stole the show at my 2nd live MCW event in November or December, becoming one of my real life darlings. So it was only natural that I'd bring him to USWA. He was the top babyface in the Cruiserweight Division feuding with.....

Christopher Daniels (Piper or Dynamite's figure)- The top heel and Ace of the Cruiserweight Division. I discovered him in that awesome real life Shotgun match with Taka. He came to USWA asap with a monster push. He's probably the guy who beat Sasuke for the J Crown/USWA Cruiserweight Championship. York vs. Daniels was going to be the Cwt. feud going forward with Wikkid in the Triple R 'spoiler' role. Daniels was also going to lead my next/last great storyline....

The APW Invasion

I don't know how far along I got with this. It was either the last big storyline at the last Lawlermania we ever had booked, or it was going to be the big thing at the next Lawlermania that we never got to. Daniels either lead, or was going to lead it. Michael Modest (Valentine), Maxx Justice (Patera), Vic Grimes (Bundy), Erin O'Grady (Dynamite), Tony Jones (JYD), Robert Thompson (SD Jones) & Boyce LaGrande (Koko) as a tag team, Vinny Massaro (Bruno), Boom Boom Comini (Bam Bam Bigelow- Cousin's favorite because of his awesome/ridiculous name), Frank Murdoch (Hogan, Outback Jack, or Funk), and Donovan Morgan (Piper?) were going to be the main APW guys. APW was also going to provide us with a few fresh lower midcarders/jobbers like Joe Applebaum (One Man Gang), Chicano Flame (Tito Santana), Chris Ward, Jason Clay, Jimmy Ripp, and Steve Rizzono. The big angle was going to be APW vs. USWA with roster spots on the line and, for the first time ever, USWA was going to LOSE an Invasion angle. Oodles of long time USWA figures were going to be replaced by the new APW guys. It was going to be A Really Big Deal. APW was going to run roughshod over USWA for one whole 'season' before USWA finally beat them back at the following Lawlermania. But I'm not sure if we ever actually started the APW Invasion, let alone got into the meat of it. 

The Final Lawlermania's

X- Jerry Lawler finally ends Smoke's long undefeated streak. I covered this in passing yesterday.

*In between X & XI we started a PG 13 vs. Lawler & Friends feud. PG 13 won a big match where they got to pick a reward of their choosing...or something like that. And JC Ice decided to....

Bring back his father Bill Dundee! The crowd went......mild.  Lawler vs. Dundee was finally played out. That should have been a sign that the end was nigh....and maybe it was? But that set up the big Lawlermania XI main event. Remember that Final Countdown video I mentioned like an hour ago? That inspired the billing for this match. It was to be.....

Lawler vs. Dundee: The Final Countdown

*Win, lose, or draw both men were going to retire. For real this time! (lol. Yeah, right) But I distinctly remember recapping the 16 year Lawler vs. Dundee feud in the style of that Flair vs. Steamboat video while The Final Countdown played in the background. I mean this is something I did multiple times. I practiced. It was probably the last 'artistic' achievement in USWA history. I wish I had recorded it.

XI- Jerry Lawler defeats Bill Dundee in a Double Retirement Final Countdown Match.

*They had their usual bloated epic main event. I knew going in that Lawler vs. Dundee was over for good this time. So I did the unthinkable when it was over....

I had Dundee shake Lawler's hand and admit once and for all that "The King" was the better man! Lawler accepted Dundee's apology. The 16 year feud was finally over. The 'crowd' loved it. But the crowd, meaning Brother, HATED it, and it may have been the last straw for him as far as USWA was concerned.

In between XI & XII- The "retired" Jerry Lawler vacated the USWA Championship. I think I came up with a bloated, all encompassing, "year" long tournament that would culminate with a new champ at Lawlermania XII. The finals came down to longtime Lawler protege Jimmy Golden and....Boone or JJ Funk or somebody like that. Lawler & Dundee were now babyface announcers, or figureheads, or something along those lines. We did a slow burn deal where PG 13 kept getting more and more annoyed with "The Superstar" for going soft. After many shows of tension, JC Ice finally snapped and attacked his old man. Wolfie D followed. Jerry Lawler made the save for his decades-long enemy. This set up the other half of our big double main event at Lawlermania XII.  

XII- Jimmy Golden beats Boone or JJ Funk or someone like that to FINALLY become USWA Champion after like 150 events as a perennial secondary champ.
Lawler & Dundee come out of retirement to team for the first time in like 17 years. They defeat PG 13 in a possible tag title match.

*The idea going forward was to have Jimmy Golden be THE guy. I was sincere about Lawler's (semi) retirement. Even I was getting bored with The King by this point. Plus Golden had waited his turn as the longest tenured babyface in USWA history (remember, he stayed face even when Lawler went heel during the build to Lawlermania I). Everybody had always liked Jimmy Golden well enough. But USWA basically died with him on top rather than Lawler. I mean events had been slowing down for a long time by this point. But now we sometimes wouldn't even do events when Cousin came over on his visits. (Gasp!) To rectify this situation I had Golden turn heel for the first time EVER. See, being the top guy went to his head. The man without an ego suddenly became a Smith Hart clone. And there was only one man who would be able to chop him down to size....

His mentor, Jerry "The King" Lawler!

*yawn*

XIII- Jerry Lawler defeated his protege Jimmy Golden to regain the USWA Championship was going to be the result. But I honestly don't think we ever got his far. I think we stopped going right before this show. I also think the rest of this show was going to be the USWA vs. APW head to head war with APW winning and like half of the traditional USWA roster being forced out. But, like I said, I'm 99% sure we never actually did this show. 

*Well, there you have it. The wrestling portion of my Magnum Opus is finally complete. Over the weekend I will do a "Where Are They Now" post. Then it's pic time. Then I'm probably done....

Unless.....

I....kind of want to turn this into a legit book. Anybody wanna read about our late 80s-early 90s league? The 1991 'chalkboard' league? My 93-95 league? 

I'm only half joking in the above sentence.... 

Nov 24, 2018 2:21:55 GMT Kilgore said:

No exaggeration, I on and off chuckled to myself about Beef Stew for at least an hour last night.

Ditto. This exactly. And now again. Looking back at that TitanTron card helps re-get me going. I love it.

Nov 24, 2018 4:30:24 GMT 🤯 said:

Nov 24, 2018 2:21:55 GMT Kilgore said:

No exaggeration, I on and off chuckled to myself about Beef Stew for at least an hour last night.

Ditto. This exactly. And now again. Looking back at that TitanTron card helps re-get me going. I love it.

SPOILER: Click to show

The Beef Stew card has a 100% success rate when it comes to brightening people's day. Here is a text message conversation I had with my brother a few weeks ago.....




*Alright, time to wrap my up my magnum opus with one final storytime.....

Where Are They Now?

Baker- *Mick Foley voice* Posts right here on PW. *cheesy thumbs up*

Rick- As mentioned a few posts back, I'm not entirely sure I've seen him 5 times since 2000. We drifted apart in 1999. It was nothing personal. We just had different interests and ran in different circles by that point. He was married and had been at the same job/company since like 1999 when I last saw him a few years ago. He still lives in my general vicinity but I never randomly run into him in public. Don't know if he still follows wrestling but I can just about guarantee you that if I saw him tomorrow we would discuss real life 90s wrestling and our beloved USWA/Lawlermania.

Brother- We also drifted apart to a large extent in the 2000s. We still talked/texted maybe once a week, and saw each other a few times a month, but we weren't really close or anything. He went his way and I went mine. We ran in different circles for the most part. He moved back in with me from 2014-2016. Now he lives about an hour and a half away. We talk/text about once a week and see each other for big events- weddings, funerals, holidays, and the like.

Brother was an on and off wrestling fan growing up. Certainly the least wrestling-obsessed member of our little clique. He was really into it from 87-91. Then he "outgrew" it until the big neighborhood wrestling boom brought him back from mid 95-early 97. Then he got out of it again. He did not follow wrestling during the Attitude Era and actually knew very little about it until a few years ago.  He got back into contemporary WWE for the first time since early 1997 in 2014-15. Rusev & Reigns were his guys. He was also a Cena & Cesaro respecter. Hated Seth Rollins & Kevin Owens though. He didn't stick with it long because who does nowadays? But it did reignite his buried passion for wrestling and now he actually watches far more wrestling than I do. He's forever texting me about some match/interview he watched and sending me links to matches/interviews/themes. Pretty cool.

Cousin- Was my last wrestling buddy from the action figure/wrestling fan clique. We went to a bunch of Raw & Smackdown tapings together in 98-99-00. We also went to a bunch of MCW shows together in 98-99, and Cousin came with me to the ECW Arena five or six of the 8 times I went in 99-00. Cousin's was also my big WWF & ECW pay per view house in 99-00.

Yet even Cousin grew out of wrestling by about August 2000. We drifted apart in general after that. I didn't see much of him from then until about 2005, though him and his girlfriend moved in with my brother when Brother bought his first house. The three of them lived there together for a few years until Cousin & Girlfriend struck out on their own.

Cousin and I reconnected around 2005. He was my 'best friend' again from then until around 2013-14. We talked/texted a few times a week and hung out fairly regularly during that stretch. I got along fabulously with his girlfriend, who I like a lot. They got married in 2011. I was a groomsman. Drank a little too much before the ceremony. Apparently talked to my brother throughout said ceremony. I didn't learn about this for another year or so. One day I went out to eat with my mom and Cousin's mom. Cousin's Mom told me about my chatterbox behavior. I felt bad. But nobody minded. If anything, they thought it was amusing. Just "Baker being Baker," which is definitely a real life thing. Only nobody calls me Baker in real life. 

Cousin now has two daughters and a job that keeps him busy. We don't talk much anymore. He's still cool in my book though.

Oddly enough, Cousin has never liked to discuss his wrestling-obsessed youth. I brought it up a time or two back when we talked all the time. He quickly changed the subject. I think it embarrasses him. I doubt if he's watched more than 2 hours of wrestling since he "outgrew" it around August 2000. Sad!

One day I'll need to remind of how he wrote his big 1995 'Current Events' paper...... on Wrestlemania XI   OK, so I actually wrote like 80% of that paper for him because I just wanted to get to a league and/or tape. But, man, was it ever a doozy. Undoubtedly the best paper in his class, just as Wrestlemania XI was undoubtedly among the most important events to occur in the entire world during the year 1995. I can also assure you that his teacher never had a paper with better references than this one. Bill Apter! PWI! WWF Magazine! All these sources obviously smoke Encyclopedia Brittanica, any newspaper, and any non-PWI family magazine.

The Three Brothers- I watched practically every Raw from November 95-June 99 at their house. Same goes for about 2/3rds of WWF pay per views from Summerslam 95-Wrestlemania 15 in 1999. As with the rest of the gang, we drifted apart as 1999 wore on.

I did see them more than Rick though. Brother remained good friends with them up until 2 years ago. In particular, Brother and the eldest of the Three Brothers were thick as thieves. So I'd still see at least one of the Three Brothers about once a month from 2000-2016. We also on the same softball team sporadically from around 2004-2011.

The eldest and youngest of the Three Brothers have had their share of problems, though the oldest was doing much better the last I heard. He was my favorite of the trio, and the one I would see the most over the years, while the youngest brother was the one I'd see the least.

The Razor Ramon-loving middle brother, my least favorite of the trio, was still a modern day WWE fan as recently as a few months ago. He had (has?) The Network. Brother & I would often go up there to watch classic shows when The Network first became a thing. The Middle Brother also still attends WWE shows whenever they're in Baltimore and has a sweet collection of vintage wrestling shirts including Macho Man, Big Bossman, and his hero Razor Ramon. His modern WWE guys as of a few years ago were Dolph Ziggler & Bo Dallas. He's been with the same big-in-Baltimore company for like 15 years now but hates his job. I know this because 90% of all conversations with are about how much he hates his job, with the other 10% being wrestling talk.[/span
The eldest & middle brother live together about 8-10 minutes from me. Random: I saw the Three Brothers father in the store just last week. 

Chuck- Whereas I simply drifted away from everybody else, Chuck just straight up ghosted. He had some sort of major falling out with my brother and the Three Brothers in the late 90s-early 2000s. Then nobody saw or heard from him for years. I seem to recall hearing he was in the military for a while. 

I ran into him a few times at local bars in 2006-07. I remember the first time taking a ride with him to talk his friend (another kid who grew up in our neighborhood, though I only knew this weirdo in passing) down from a telephone pole he was climbing for reasons I cannot begin to fathom.

The 2nd time was actually at a sports bar during Royal Rumble 2007. We discussed wrestling, both current and classic. He claimed not to watch wrestling anymore, yet somehow knew all the wrestlers and storylines. I remember him being really impressed with Edge, paying him the ultimate compliment by saying something to the extent of, "I really like Edge. He's one of the few current guys who could have been a major star in the 90s." High praise, indeed. We mutually marked out for the Undertaker/Michaels Royal Rumble finish. Then we went our separate ways and I never saw or heard from him again.

Let's end it with another Titantron Card. This time it's a 2 for the price of 1 deal from the land of the Full Moon....



I LOVE the idea of Stevie Richards' jean shorts becoming his 'logo' a la the old WWF Saturday Night's Main Event. You also have to appreciate Stevie taking shots at his former employers ECW (twice) and WCW. Despite his bravado, you know it had to be eating Stevie up that he was spending 1998 slumming it in FMW after being pegged as a breakout star just one year earlier. Oh well. Luckily for Stevie, things worked out alright in the end for him.

2 Bald Guys is a low key Top 5 Titantron Card contender. Look at those ugly mugs! Those are definitely two goombahs you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Check out the scar on the solidly named Jimmy Cicero. Then check out the unibrow on the awesomely named Cueball Carmichael. Seriously though. Cueball Carmichael. What a name! I'd even have to put that above "Beef Stew" Lou.

*Early next week I'll probably do a massive pic dump including 48 Lawlermania pics, 50+ Titantron Cards, the figures themselves with accessories (including homemade capes!), and perhaps my brother's SMW notebook.

A few months ago I became aware of the existence of a modern wrestler named Ace Austin. I meant to comment on it at the time, but think I forgot. Anyway, I was reminded of Mr. Austin's existence again last night. I now demand royalties from The Ace because I invented Ace Austin for my action figure league circa 1993.

Fact! He was my Stunning Steve/Ravishing Rick mashup guy. Jesse Ventura's figure. Used the Rude Awakening as a finisher. Solid upper midcard/secondary belt holding heel. Also formed a championship winning duo with "Dapper" Dan Chase. Think he won tag gold teaming with Jeff Jarrett as well (Original Double Trouble, perhaps?). 

Rediscovering New Ace Austin sent me on a nostalgia trip where I reminisced about my pre-Golden Age action figure league which ran for a few years from some indeterminate date until 1995. I was this close to starting a fanfic project based upon this league* before remembering I only covered the 95-98 action figure league Golden Age in this thread. 

That means there are 3 more entire action figure league eras to cover! Oh boy!

I'll begin with a brief overview of all the eras. Then hopefully come back to write about the first era later tonight....

Early Days- Summer 1988-June 1990- When I can distinctly remember coming up with our own characters and storylines rather than copying what we saw on tv.

Christmas 1990-Spring 1991- The Chalkboard League- This league was unique in that shows were not booked. The figures would be thrown into a big pile. Two figures would be blindly picked. Those two randomly selected wrestlers would then have a match. Rinse and repeat until all 40 or so figures were used. Every single figure was a CAW. I refer to it as The Chalkboard League because we kept a Top 10 list on the chalkboard I got for Christmas 1990. The Top 10 was this league's big hook. For example, if an unranked wrestler beat the #7 wrestler, the unranked wrestler would then become #7. Can't remember if the #7 wrestler who lost simply got bumped down one spot, or left the Top 10 entirely. This was a pretty silly league that didn't last too long, and I can only definitively remember 6 wrestlers and a sort of mascot. But I will cover it anyway.

199?-mid 1995- Ace Austin's league. Which is actually a pretty lol name for it. That would be like calling New Generation WWF "Owen Hart's League." I can't pinpoint an exact start date for this one. It was definitely huge by early 1993, but I think it started far earlier. Possibly even as soon as early 1991? And in the beginning it wasn't an action figure league at all, but a "me doing moves to pillows on my parents bed" league. I did this one all alone....when nobody else was home....until the final few months. But this shit was serious business. It was my baby. I recorded everything in this short, thick blue notebook. I'd write out the storylines. I recorded show results. I kept track of heights, weights, and hometowns. I kept a championship/tournament history. The wrestlers were a mix of CAWs, real wrestlers, and thinly veiled versions of real wrestlers. The latter I guess to get around nonexistent trademark issues? It's hilarious in hindsight to me that I didn't just call them Vader, Ron Simmons, Tatanka, Ludvig Borga, 1-2-3 Kid, and Owen Hart. NO! For reasons 1993 me wouldn't even have been able to adequately explain, they became Colossus, Jackson Smith, Indian Outlaw, Helsinki Hellraiser/Hammer, Kid Gleason, and Silver Comet. Incredibly, I STILL remember the exact order of the first few champions, as well as the inaugural secondary belt holders. Plus several big angles and tournament results. I cared entirely too much about my fictional action figure leagues.

If the 95-98 LawlerMania era stuff is The Golden Age than this is The Silver Age. It's also the one I REALLY want to write about. But I feel obligated to start at the beginning. So stories about the Rivers, Shofers, BOTH Busters, and the infamous Giant George are right around the corner.....

Plus this gives me a little bit of leeway just in case I want to relive the glory of the Ace Austin Years, only this time in fanfic form.  

1995-1998- Golden Age/LawlerMania years- Already extensively covered.

Early Days: Summer 1988-June 1990

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
For over a year we simply copied WWF storylines.....at best. It is equally likely we simply used our figures to engage in mindless violence. For example, I distinctly remember chucking Hulk Hogan & Roddy Piper into the backyard fence over and over again because I couldn't stand them   I also recall a distinct lack of amusement from my parents over this abuse of our latest toys. (But Mom! Come on! You know I hate Hulk Hogan and Roddy Roddy Pooper!) Hogan's figure was very true to life as there was barely a scratch on the notorious no seller, but Piper was all beat up from my admittedly ill-conceived fence throwing endeavor. 

Anyway, this story begins in earnest during the summer of 1988. Two things occurred which allow me to date it with precision......

A Childhood Trip To The Bar and a Fairy Tale

My little league baseball team had just won the first of back to back league championships. We were sponsored by a bar (Other teams were sponsored by a bike shop and a local Domino’s Pizza. I don't remember who sponsored the 4th team). Some time after our championship win the team got together to celebrate its success with dinner at the very bar which sponsored us. Some 32 years later I only remember one big thing from this trip. I'm guessing we took a team picture for the bar to put on its wall to show they do good work in the local community. But all I remember is the jukebox.....

This bar had a jukebox. My brother and I were fascinated by it. I'm guessing we were adorable because the middle aged female barflies kept plying us with quarters to play songs on said jukebox. I remember 3 songs from our stint as jukebox heroes- Moon River, Lazy River, and Pinball Wizard. Two of those songs had a huge influence on our early action figure leagues....

I had a grade school teacher named Mrs. Daugherty. She was an insufferable old bitch. Easily my least favorite teacher I ever had. And now I really want to tell a bunch of Mrs. Daugerty stories. She was basically the real life version of Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter. Looking back I can't help but chuckle with amusement as my COMPLETELY TRUE memories paint her as a comically over the top real life supervillain. I can guarantee you the day teachers were no longer allowed to smack kids with rulers was the saddest day of "Farty" Daugherty's life. 

But I distinctly remember being assigned to write a fairy tale in Mrs. Daugherty's class. I also remember said story revolving around a thinly veiled composite of a top wrestling figure league tag team. Mrs. Daugherty was my teacher in 88-89. Voila! That means I can pinpoint the jukebox story (and everything that follows) to the summer of '88.

The Wrestlers

Giant George- Andre The Giant taken to the extreme.
GG was the ultimate monster heel. He was also an innovator. GG was chucking dudes from high places years before Brian Lee. GG was also breaking rings long before Bam Bam & Taz. Giant George was even "spray painting" fools years before the NWO! Yep. That was his thing. GG would hit either a falling slam or a big splash from the rafters (bookcase) and we would write "GG" on the carcasses of his many victims (for whatever reason, the "GG" written on King Kong Bundy stayed there for YEARS). Giant George is the REAL Innovator of Violence. He was also responsible for breaking the first (and probably second) of our MANY broken rings. I wish I could definitively say GG was responsible for "ending Hulkamania," which is what allowed us to go in a new, more creative direction. But that's PROBABLY not true. Regardless, GG was our first great monster heel, and the biggest draw in basement wrestling for a while.

Master of Disaster- Sometimes Andre's figure. Other times Big John Studd's figure.
Used the Ghetto Blaster as a finisher. Either predated or succeeded Giant George as the top monster heel. Was successful. Just not GIANT GEORGE successful.

Moon River & Lazy River- Moon was Ted Arcidi. Lazy was Hillbilly Jim.
Remember that seemingly unrelated jukebox story? This is where it comes into play. These dudes named after songs from the jukebox were our Hogan & Warrior. Moon was PROBABLY the wrestler who ended Giant George's long reign of terror. His finisher was the top rope splash. My brother and I were at odds over Lazy's finish until his dying day. I always remembered it being a Top Rope Leg Drop (Hogan to the extreme!) but my brother SWORE it was the "Lazy Elbow"- top rope elbow drop. He's probably right since his take even had a name. It would also make sense to give the #2 guy in our fed the finish of the #2 guy in THE fed. 

Fun Fact: Moon River is, of course, an Andy Williams classic. One version of the lesser known (Up a) Lazy River was put out by The Mills Brothers. One of those Mills Brothers was a pro wrestling fan who attended AWA's Las Vegas ESPN tapings in the mid 80s. It all comes full circle....

Pinball Wizard?- OK, so I honestly don't remember us having a character called the Pinball Wizard. But come on! Moon & Lazy River were characters. So it stands to reason the other jukebox hero would also be a character. Yet I do not remember having a character called the Pinball Wizard. It makes no sense! How could the deaf, dumb, and blind kid who plays a mean pinball NOT get over? Unless....the Pinball Wizard was deemed too cool for wrestling? Yeah. Let's go with that.

Bald Shofer & Hairy Shofer- Bald was Bundy's figure. Hairy was George "The Animal" Steele.
OK. Everything about this is hilarious in hindsight. Hairy was George "The Animal" Steel. Meaning the Hairy Shofer was actually bald! Also, "Shofer" is the late 80s kiddie spelling of "Chauffeur." Meaning these guys were badass.....drivers   They were also combined into the main character in the fairy tale I wrote for Mrs. Daugherty's class- Shofe. Harry Shofer would continue to regress over the years, bottoming out entirely when Lawlermania Era jobber Harry Seaver initially began life as a parody of the now old, and therefore uncool, Hairy Shofer. 

They started life as badass heels feuding with the Rivers. Their thing was speeding to the ring in a big red toy truck, crashing into said ring, hopping out to quickly kick ass, and then speeding away again. And woe to anyone who got in the way of their big red toy truck. Meaning....

They were basically our Road Warriors when it came to kickass quick squashes. They also introduced vehicles to wrestling many years before those hacks Austin, Eddie, and JBL came along. 

They soon turned face and joined up with the Rivers as our very own version of NWA's SuperPowers. They were good guys for the bulk of their run.

Bad Buster & Good Buster- Bad Buster was Big John Studd's figure. Good Buster was Dynamite Kid.
Bad Buster came first and he was just called "Buster" in those days. His finisher was also the Ghetto Blaster, which was sometimes called the Back Brain Kick, and which I apparently loved giving to monster heels who were BJS's figure. Bad Buster was cool. At some point the Rivers, whom Bad Buster was feuding with, had a mystery opponent lined up for Buster. It turned out to be ANOTHER Buster. I HATED this storyline. YOU CAN'T HAVE TWO BUSTERS!!! I argued. My brother got a HUGE kick out of this trolljob. It infuriated me for some reason. To make matters worse, Good Buster's finisher was a simple back body drop. That's not a finisher! Even in the late 80s I knew a f'n back body drop was no finisher. I think we eventually made a compromise to drop both Busters. A shame. Because Bad Buster RULED. Not like that shitty Good Buster.

The Purple Cow- Don Muraco's figure
Long before Reigns, before Cena, and even before "Made In The USA" Lex Luger, there was the Purple Cow. The Cow came from a song I learned in school. He was to my brother what Good Buster was to me. I was in love with the Cow. Wanted him to be the Next Big Thing. Unfortunately my brother did not agree. He was a hardcore Cow hater. Because of this, the Purple Cow flopped. Another shame.

The Spangled Bangle- Brutus Beefcake's figure
It's probably not true, but I'd like to say the Spangled Bangle was my first attempt at a top heel who wasn't a monster. He was more of a Ric Flair/Mr. Perfect type. Pretty sure his finisher was the piledriver. My brother remembered the Bangle some 30 years later. So he had to have been a success on some level.

Mr. Prestigious- Paul Orndorff's figure
Beyond Wonderful. Better than Perfect. He is MISTER PRESTIGIOUS! Another Flair/Perfect/Bangle type heel. His finisher was a PerfectPlex you really had to use your imagination for since the figures didn't remotely bend that way.

Heinie & Boto- Heinie was Volkoff's figure. Boto was Beefcake
GOAT early days tag team. Neither Heinie nor Boto could ever beat a River or Shofer in singles action, but they could more than hold their own in tag matches against the two Super Face teams. Their gimmick was "not American." Heinie (eventually) was a Nazi, and Boto a Commie, but I'm 99% sure that was a latter day retcon once I learned a little more about history. 

Again, everything about this is hilarious in hindsight. A Nazi and a Commie would never team. Furthermore, Heinie, the German, was Nikolai Volkoff's figure when Boto, the Russian, is RIGHT THERE 

Let's talk about Heinie. Heinie was kiddie speak for "ass." I was a huge baseball fan who often read books about baseball. At least one of these books had a list of batting champs from the beginning of time to 198_. MULTIPLE batting champs were named Heinie! This was HILARIOUS to single digit age me. I laughed until I cried. Then I laughed some more. Heinie the wrestler was invented the next day. Boto soon followed as the first vaguely foreign name I thought of. 

Their finisher was the Destruction Crew's totally badass Wrecking Ball. Which to normal people would be the Road Warriors totally badass Doomsday Device. But I swear I got it from the Destruction Crew!

Fwiw the first top tag team in the Ace Austin League would just be a polished up version of Heinie & Boto. They definitely inspired The Bohemians (more on them later)

Sailing Seaver & Dave Stewart- Seaver was HTM. Stewart was Greg Valentine
These guys started life as our Rockers. They were (eventually) called The Daredevils. But I think that was when I recycled this storyline for the Ace Austin Fed (which really needs a better name).

Dave Stewart was based on AWA's "Illustrious" Johnnie Stewart. But I either botched his first name (most likely scenario) or purposely went with a baseball theme...

Sailing Seaver was definitely inspired by another baseball book. This one was an old-even-then library book about great pitchers (from the 70s). It mentioned Tom Seaver and his "sailing fastball." Voila! Sailing Seaver was born. 

Again, my kiddie booking predicts and predates real life events. The Daredevils "invented" xtreme high flying. Dave Stewart (the Michaels) turned on Sailing Seaver (the Jannetty) years before it happened in real life. Their subsequent matches were basically RVD/Sabu 6-7 years early. These wrestlers, and this storyline, would be among the very few things from these early days that I would use again in later years.

Tugboat Thomas- Junkyard Dog's figure
Before Tugboat debuted in real life he was hyped up on tv as "Hulk Hogan's friend, Tugboat Thomas- Coming soon!" He sounded cool and we...umm....made him black  I don't remember what we did when the real Tugboat debuted, but I definitely remember Tugboat Thomas as JYD's figure.  

Kidco/Magic Chef/Frost Free/Indian Chief- Kidco was Rick Martel's figure. No idea about the rest. 
You know your promotion has jumped the shark when your brother starts naming wrestlers after appliance brands found in your grandmother's kitchen   All of this was sub-Purple Cow level shit.....except Kidco. He was alright. So he stuck around. I don't think the rest ever made beyond that one time we took the figures to our grandmother's house. But it is worth noting those 3 shitty characters stuck with me for at least 30 years....

*I'm sure there were more CAWs. Probably lots of them. But these are the "only" ones I remember some 30+ years later. I don't remember keeping a notebook for this league, though it's very possible we did. I do know we had champs- World and Tag Team at least. Probably IC as well. But, again, I do not remember for sure.

There's one more story + wrestler from this era I'll save for tomorrow just because the story is kind of long. Then it's on to The Chalkboard League.

Ahh screw it. I feel like writing some more. 

Daniel, David, Scaffolds, and Maryland Man

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
Across the street lived a nice old married couple. He was a (retired) auto mechanic who still took a look at my parents vehicles when they were in need of work. She was like a kindly old aunt who occasionally baked delicious treats for the neighborhood children. They had two grandchildren named Daniel & David who would visit on the weekends, and stay with them for long stretches of time in the summer.

Daniel & David were both a few years older than myself, which made them a few more years older than my brother. David was the eldest of the two. So old was David that he mostly hung out with the older kids...the weird and feared "teenagers"...rather than my brother and I. He was still cool though. His big thing was he was missing half a finger. I cannot recall which finger exactly, but that was basically his gimmick..... 

"Hey kids, wanna see my finger?"
"Sure!" the unsuspecting neighborhood children would reply, while those of us in the know would smirk along with David. 
They'd then be taken aback when they saw his half finger.
"Wanna touch it?" David would say, his smirk growing more pronounced.
"EWW!" said the less diplomatic neighborhood children. 

Now I was far too polite to ever be one of the "EWW!" kids. But, at the same time, I never did have the balls to touch it.

Anyway, that was David. 

Daniel was closer to my brother and I in age. I honestly have no idea just how old either one was. I'd guess Daniel was 2 or 3 years older than me, and David 4 or 5, but that is mere speculation. 

Daniel was cool. I sort of looked up to him as the big brother I never had. Watching The Neverending Story alongside him and my dad is one of my earliest memories in life. Daniel was a fan of Intellivision and pro wrestling. Just like I was!

It was Daniel who first introduced me to the concept of the Scaffold Match. It was his go to match in action figure leagues. I remember him claiming it was a real thing. At the time, I believed him. Why wouldn't I? Daniel would never lie! But as the years rolled on, and I thought about it more, I became convinced he made the whole thing up..... 

For starters, why would it be called it a "Scaffold Match?" What the hell is a "scaffold" anyway? Why don't they call it a Platform Match? That makes sense. Because the wrestlers are fighting on a platform. And a platform is a real thing. Scaffold? Pfft! Wtf does that even mean? Plus people can’t just fall from great heights in real life. That sort of madness is perfectly fine with Giant George and toys but it just doesn’t translate into reality. And if Scaffold Matches are so real how come I've never seen one in my beloved WWF??

Fast forward to late 1995. I'm renting NWA tapes every weekend. Lo and behold, Scaffold Matches all over the place! Daniel was right all along! I owe that man an apology. Sorry for ever doubting you, Daniel!

Daniel's pet character was Maryland Man- Demolition Ax's figure.....for some reason. Maryland Man winning a Scaffold Match (perhaps over Florida Man?) would have been the main event of every Wrestlemania Daniel ever booked. 

For whatever reason, I do not recall my brother and I ever using Daniel's Maryland Man character if Daniel wasn't around. Maybe it was gesture of respect to Daniel? It's also possible the Demolition Ax figure was not ours, but Daniel's. Meaning Ax left when he did. Or perhaps I just thought the Maryland Man character sucked?  It's a mystery... 

I'm also going to give Daniel credit for inventing Marilyn Manson. See, because Maryland Man=Marilyn Manson. Yep. That works. 

My family moved in June 1990. I never saw Daniel (or David) again. The wrestling figures were put in "deep storage" (which meant underneath of like 3 other boxes and maybe behind 2 more) for 6 months that felt more like 6 years given the weird way time works when one is young. But greatness can never be buried for long. And the wrestling figures would make their first of several triumphant returns coinciding with Christmas 1990. But that's a story for tomorrow....

*Well, that wraps up the Early Days.
Tomorrow: the quirky and short-lived Chalkboard League~!

The Chalkboard League: Part One

SPOILER: Click to show

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
Setting The Stage

*There really isn't a whole lot to write about the actual Chalkboard League. I simply don't remember much about it. But I do remember a lot of the events surrounding that short-lived fed. So I'm just gonna ramble for a bit...

My family moved in June 1990. The wrestling figures were stuck in "deep storage" behind a few other boxes in the back of the basement, which my parents used as a  storage area. The wrestlers were only MIA for about 6 months. Yet it felt more like 6 years given the way time works when one is young.

But wrestling itself was as hot as ever. If anything, November 1990-March 1991 was one of those sporadic little boom periods where my fandom went from its usual 8/10 to a 9/10. Fwiw this little era was sandwiched in between two lengthier meh periods where my interest waned a tiny bit. Anyway, my new best friend Vogel was a fellow wrestling fanatic (I always seemed to find them). We got all the WWF pay per views from Summerslam 1990-Wrestlemania VII on tape a few days after they aired from our old neighbor Mr. Charlie. Summerslam 90 and WM 7 were whatever, but Survivor Series 90 and Royal Rumble 91 were my most watched PPVs up until 1995....or at least parts of them were. I watched the hell out of Undertaker's debut at Survivor Series 90, Mountie's debut at Royal Rumble 91, and, best of all, Slaughter beating Warrior for the belt also at the 91 Rumble.

Slaughter, Taker, Mountie, and Perfect comprised my Mt. Rushmore during this period. Taker & Perfect were just the coolest dudes.

I loved Mountie before he ever set foot in the ring. One vignette was all it took. They didn't hide the fact that it was Jacques Rougeau of Rougeau Brothers fame. So I was already biased in his favor. And that glorious vignette involving an American tourist, Georgia, and a horse just made me love him even more. 

My beloved Nintendo was one of the few things I liked as much, or even more, than my beloved WWF/pro wrestling. The original Dragon Warrior was our big game at the time, and to this day a Top 5 all time NES video game. I named our character MOUNTY (there was also a SARGE, but MOUNTY was our go to saved game). This means I named the character before Mountie ever debuted in the ring. See, because as a multiple time grade school spelling bee champion I was something of a spelling nazi. Meaning there is no way in hell I would ever have misspelled the name of one of my new favorite wrestlers. Fwiw Mountie/Mounty would forever be the name of our Dragon Warrior characters in DW II & III. Mountie is as synonymous with Dragon Warrior as Erdrick in my weirdo mind. DW is the GOAT NES series, by the way.

I would later get a little Mountie statue as well. Perhaps for my next birthday in February 1991? Yes. That is likely. I still have the little Mountie statue to this day. Think I once posted a pic of it on the old PW.

And Sgt. Slaughter rounds out the Mt. Rushmore of this little era. I didn't care about the Sarge....until he upset Warrior for the belt. It instantly became my 2nd (or even 1B) favorite match of all time (rivaling Hogan/Andre from The Main Event), while Slaughter himself immediately skyrocketed into new wrestling hero status. Being an outspoken and obnoxious Sarge fan got me nuclear real life heel heat. The only other wrestling-related thing that even comes close is being a Goldust fan in late 1995, but even that pales in comparison to the sheer hatred I got for being an Iraqi-sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter fanboy. I got into a real life fistfight (one of my very few) based upon my Slaughter fandom! Vogel and I duked it out in front of his house when my trollish Sarge-loving, anti-American rhetoric went too far. I wish I could say I won this fight, but that is not the case. Vogel whipped me. And I probably deserved it. Though I did save face by refusing to say whatever it was he wanted me to say (probably something childish like "Hulk Rules, Slaughter Drools" or perhaps "USA is #1").

Outside of WWF I'd occasionally sneak into my parents room to watch the other promotions which aired on grainy DC Channel 50 every Monday-Friday at 6 pm. For a long time this was usually Thursdays for AWA where I kept hoping for new Larry Legend content, only to be disappointed by more stupid AWA Classics. At some point I must have finally given up on AWA and made Monday or Tuesday my night to sneak in a little rasslin' watching because this little stretch also marks the only period from 90-92 where I watched some NWA/WCW. The Black Scorpion buzz brought me back. Beyond that I remember really weird stuff like Stan Hansen, Owen Hart (betcha didn't know he worked WCW), Lt. James Earl Wright, the man, the myth, the Minotaur, and those cool black & white Arn/Windham promos at the railroad tracks. 

Christmas 1990

This little wrestling mini-boom reached its apex on Christmas 1990, which is right up there with 95 & 96 as the GOAT Christmas.

I received at least 3 GOAT level presents this year. The first was a cool book by George Napolitano called The Pictoral History of Wrestling. This book, simple though it was, considerably expanded my wrestling knowledge.

We also got two wrestling tapes. And they were weird ones! One was an AWA commercial tape called (I think) Greatest Tag Team Matches. At least this tape did feature 'important' star vs. star matches. The other video was a truly bizarre NWA commercial tape featuring random tv matches from like 1983. It was mostly squashes. Yet it got way more play than the 'boring' AWA tape over the years. 

The third, and this is the one I was most excited about, was....a chalkboard. Because I was weird.

*I may have also received my acoustic guitar as a Christmas present this year. I do remember starting guitar lessons (from Vogel's old babysitter who lived a block away) every Thursday after school not long after this. There's even a slim chance we got Dragon Warrior for Christmas this year! (though I'm pretty sure we bought that with our own money. But maybe it was Christmas money!).

Hmm....this is looking more and more like the GOAT Christmas. 

It Begins

Wrestling is hot. I have a new chalkboard I'm just dying to use. I put 2 and 2 together and decide to combine these two awesome things.

Well, that's how I "remembered" it* in my outline post a few days ago. But it's equally likely we were on a wrestling high after receiving those Christmas gifts, and just pulled the wrestlers out of deep storage on or around Christmas for non-chalkboard related reasons. 

*I strive for authenticity in these posts. Everything I write is how I remember it. BUT much of this is insignificant-in-grand-scheme-of-things stuff from 30 years ago. So there's a very strong chance I am getting some details wrong. And I sadly no longer have anybody to confirm or deny these stories. But I can assure you I am trying my very best to accurate.

Maybe we started the old 'recycle WWF storylines' thing before that inevitably got boring in, oh, about twenty minutes or so. Perhaps we went back to old standards like the Rivers and Shofers before realizing they were now passe....old hat....strictly kid's stuff. Or it's entirely possible we were just goofing around, grabbing wrestlers at random and giving them a silly new name on the spot, and it quickly morphed into A Thing.

Regardless of exactly HOW it happened, before much time had passed, wrestling and chalkboard had combined into....

The Chalkboard League!

*Gotta go. Either later tonight or tomorrow I'll cover the 6 wrestlers & 1 'mascot' I remember from The Chalkboard League + its demise.

The Chalkboard League: Part Two

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
Quick Overview

Just to reiterate real quick- this league revolved around a Top 10 written a chalkboard. That was the big hook. A few posts back I wrote how we just picked two wrestlers at random to have matches until all 40 or so wrestlers were used. That is likely only half true. What probably happened is the 40 or so wrestlers were divided into separate Good Guy and Bad Guy piles simply because Good Guy vs. Good Guy matches were extremely rare, and Bad Guy vs. Bad Guy matches occurred only slightly more frequently than Halley's Comet orbited the earth. Even from an early age I had an understanding of how wrestling worked.

I was first introduced to the Top 10 in a wrestling context by 1987 UWF. Most likely coming back to WCW for a little while in late 90-early 91 reminded me of this very cool idea. Or maybe I got the idea from College Football/Basketball, both of which I was a big fan of. 

The Wrestlers

The Abruzzi Slugger- Bruno's figure
-The Man of Chalkboard Wrestling. He was our Hogan. Or our Bruno ripoff to be more accurate. I'll give myself credit for booking the Slugger just like Bruno was booked in real life despite the fact that I think I had only seen one Bruno match in my life up to this point. The name is either a botched Napolitano line from The Pictoral History of Wrestling where George calls Bruno "the Abruzzi Strongman" OR I showed a surprising amount of youthful wisdom by predating 2000s WWE in not wanting two wrestlers to share the same name (more on that later). The nearly unbeatable Slugger "feuded"* with.....

The 8th Wonder of the World- Andre's figure
-And a blatant Andre ripoff. Heel Andre, that is. Since the only face Andre matches I had ever seen at the time were his bouts at WM 1 & 2. Andre was pure heel to kiddie me and my brother. 

*Chalkboard wrestling didn't really have feuds in the traditional sense. Remember, it wasn't booked. Matches were picked at random. But the Slugger & 8th Wonder were basically the only two wrestlers capable of beating each other, and perennially #1 & #2 on the sacred chalkboard rankings. And maybe the 8th Wonder tried to (more on that later) interfere in the Slugger's matches? They might go 15-20 "shows" without having a match. But when they did. Oh boy! Business picked up. I will again give myself credit for making Fake Bruno vs. Fake Andre the biggest "feud" in Chalkboard Wrestling since Real Bruno/Real Andre would have been the biggest pre-1984 match in WWF history. Only Bruno/Backlund even comes close.

The Boston Strongman- Ted Arcidi's figure
-He was from Boston. He was strong. He was the Boston Strongman. Kind of a poor man's Abruzzi Slugger. "Feuded" with....

Kim-Chee- Kamala's figure
-And a blatant Kamala ripoff. 

*I can't help but laugh at the extremely lazy "booking" of Chalkboard Wrestling. Strongman/Chee followed the exact same strongman vs. monster formula as Slugger/8th Wonder! Strongman & Chee were forever swapping the #3 & #4 spot just as Slugger & The Wonder swapped the 1-2 spot.

Chalkboard Wrestling was extremely hierarchical. The Top 4 whipped everybody else. Strongman & Slugger were the only wrestlers who could slam Kim Chee, but only Slugger could slam The Wonder. Therefore, Slugger > Strongman > Every Other Good Guy. On the heel side, Kim Chee was the 2nd biggest guy, but The Wonder was the biggest. Therefore, Wonder > Chee > Every Other Bad Guy. My guess is the usual rankings went.....

1. Abruzzi Slugger
2. 8th Wonder of the World
3. Boston Strongman
4. Kim-Chee

5. Mr. Prestigious- Mr. Wonderful's figure
-Beyond wonderful. Better than perfect. He is our old friend from the Rivers/Shofer era (Mr. Kennedy voice) MISTERRRRRRR PRESTIGIOUS! Chances are I wanted to push Mr. Prestigious to the moon as our Flair/Perfect guy but stupid rule-abiding brother put a kibosh on the cheating Mr. Prestigious would inevitably have had to use to beat the likes of the Slugger and the Strongman (more on that in a bit). 

Mr. Oregon- Billy Jack Haynes' figure
-And then there is Mr. Oregon. I have no idea what his won/loss record was like. If he did get a push, it was probably the first ever irony push. But I actually do remember this guy. When I was coming up with the names I took a look at BJH's figure and started cracking up. I remember this like it was yesterday. Dude was SO rah rah about Oregon. It was ridiculous. And also hilarious to kiddie me. He had "Oregon" written on his trunks AND both boots! So the "Mr. Oregon" name was an obvious choice. Had I been a little smarter I'd have brought back Maryland Man and done an epic Mr. Oregon vs. Maryland Man feud. I can also say with 100% certainty that Mr. Oregon would have been Abruzzi Slugger huge had this fed come around a year or two later after I was introduced to Oregon Trail.

Skulls/G. Skulls Skultnick- One Man Gang's figure
-Easily the most memorable character in Chalkboard Wrestling. And the weird thing is he wasn't even a wrestler! Nope. Skulls was more like Chalkboard Wrestling's 911 (another thing we invented!)

Skulls was my brother's pet character. As I said, Skulls didn't wrestle. He was basically a troubleshooting referee. He'd speed down to the ring in the Shofer's old red toy truck whenever the Bad Guys were cheating. Skulls would then proceed to beat up the Bad Guy, leading to an inevitable win for the Good Guy.

I f'n hated Skulls. He represented the different takes my brother and I had on wrestling. I understood the Art of Heeling. Bad guys cheat to win. That's how it works. If a bad guy starts winning matches clean he becomes a good guy. Only the biggest, baddest monster heels like The 8th Wonder and Kim-Chee are exempt from the rule. And even they have to cheat to beat the real top tier good guys like The Abruzzi Slugger and Boston Strongman. My brother didn't get this. He hated interference. HATED it. Even as late as the Attitude Era (which he barely watched) he couldn't stand interference. In fact, that was his biggest argument against the AE- "Wrestling is stupid now. Every match ends in interference. It's not about who the better wrestler is, but about who has more/better friends."  Then he'd go into the "It would be like if the Cowboys were playing the Bills in the Super Bowl and all of a sudden the 49ers rushed onto the field to stop the Cowboys from scoring." argument. 

So, because of stupid Skulls, it was nearly impossible for all but the biggest and baddest monster heels to get any heat or pushes in Chalkboard Wrestling. Oh, Skulls also had super strength, and was impervious to pain. He'd destroy The 8th Wonder and Kim Chee, and I imagine Brother would even have had him beat the Slugger or Strongman in 30 seconds if, god forbid, Skulls ever started having matches.

But Skulls did have the most elaborate backstory in Chalkboard Wrestling. Not that it's hard when the other top contenders are "Strongman from Italy, Strongman from Boston, Big Fat Guy from France, slightly less Big Fat Guy from Uganda, and Guy from Oregon." But....

It turns out Skulls was an ex-convict. I think he might have been "banned from wrestling" to explain why he never had matches. But Skulls was a reformed ex-con out to right wrongs. He was also a truck driver (hence speeding to the ring in the Shofer's old red truck) who eventually become a cop as well. So he was basically Trucker Norm meets the Big Bossman. If we had been smarter (or bothered to book this fed at all in a traditional sense) Skulls vs Wonder and Skulls/Chee would have been money matches. But we didn’t. So they weren’t.. 

He started life as simply Skulls. Then he became Skulls Skultnick. Then finally G. "Skulls" Skultnick. What the 'G' stood for was a big mystery. Brother would have me try to guess his name as all the bad guy wrestlers. Probably with the stip being Skulls would go away (hooray!) if I correctly guessed what the G stood for. We went through this dozens of times. I went through every male G name I could think of. Then it was on to female names like Gertrude. I never did guess what the G stood for. Before long I became convinced it was a non-name like Garage or even some silly made up word like Gupiterius. Brother swore it was indeed a real name, but I did not believe him. My "G" guesses became more and more outlandish. 

I eventually found out the G stood for Guillermo. A real name! Made famous by former Tigers closer and 1984 Award winner Guillermo "Willie" Hernandez. This was probably years later, by the way. Chances are one day I was thinking back to Skulls and the Chalkboard League when I was like "Hey, what did the G in Skulls' name stand for?" And brother casually replied "Guillermo." Dammit!

*That’s it. I don’t remember any other wrestlers from the Chalkboard Fed, though there must have been about 30-35 more.

The Demise

I estimate this happened in the spring of '91. The Chalkboard League was definitely short-lived. Probably stopped being a thing soon after Wrestlemania VII since that's when Brother "outgrew" wrestling for the first of several times. Or maybe I just got THAT tired of stupid Guillermo "Skulls" Skultnick. 

The chalkboard soon grew to collect dust before I would later resurrect it for other purposes. The wrestling figures themselves were put back into storage where they remained for at least a year until the poorly named Ace Austin Era came along. And even then I'd only pull out a few at a time. It wouldn't be until late 1995 when the entire great big box of wrestling figures would again come into regular use. 

1992: Full House, Lumberjacks, Pillows, and a New League

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
The Wider World of Wrestling

After doing some research I can now accurately pinpoint the start date of the Ace Austin League/Rocky Mountain Wrestling to no earlier than April 28, 1992. More on all this stuff later....

I was the last fan standing during this stretch. As previously mentioned, my brother "outgrew" wrestling for the first time shortly after Wrestlemania 7. I do not recall ever again discussing wrestling with my best friend Vogel beyond the immediate aftermath of the 1992 Royal Rumble. A new friend of mine named Dan (aka: The Jolly Green Giant. But don't call him that to his face unless you want to get your ear flicked later. Also not to be confused with Daniel of Maryland Man fame.) was a casual fan until his mom happened to walk in on him when Jake's snake was biting Macho Man's arm. Dan was no longer allowed to watch wrestling after that. So I was the only neighborhood fan remaining. It was up to me alone to carry the torch for professional wrestling. Which, in hindsight, would explain the highly insular nature of my upcoming fed. 

Wrestling itself was not great during this period. I was now exclusively a WWF fan. LPWA disappeared from the airwaves and those already rare Global viewings at Vogel's or my grandmother's house now became nonexistent. I literally did not know if NWA/WCW still existed, and likely just assumed it didn't. 

Even my beloved WWF was sorely lacking in depth when it came to wrestlers who captured my interest. Yet it was still stacked at the top with Flair/Shango/Undertaker/Mountie constituting my latest wrestling Mt. Rushmore. Beyond that, Michaels was coming along nicely, and I liked Money Inc due to years of built up goodwill courtesy of The Million Dollar Man. Yet it was pretty dire beyond those 6 acts.

Inspiration From Full House

I was raised on pro wrestling, sports, video games, and network television. That's it. That was my life. ABC's Friday night TGIF lineup was big in my demographic. I wasn't a huge Full House fan. More of a Family Matters guy here (and later Boy Meets World, which is clearly the GOAT TGIF show), but I'd watch some Full House from time to time. One particular episode featured Uncle Jesse playing a character called Lumberjack Jess because....reasons. That one little B storyline on a mediocre sitcom triggered an idea which gave birth a project that would become a major part of my life over the next 3 years. Here is the original Lumberjack Jess in all his cheesy early 90s glory. (it peaks from 0:59-1:22)

This episode originally aired April 28, 1992. But after piecing things together, that seems a few months early for the start date of what began as a Lumberjack Jess-inspired league. So chances are the inspiration came from watching this episode a few months later in reruns while once again hanging out alone in my parents room.

Weirdo kiddie me loved the idea of a Lumberjack Jess character. As always, I wondered how it would work in a wrestling context. I started doing wrestling moves to my parents pillows as "Lumberjack Jess." Voila! Something magical was born.

Pillow Wrestling

Lumberjack Jess was obviously amazing. Now he needed opponents to perform those moves on. So I started coming up with other characters for Lumberjack Jess to defeat with his Hoganesque moveset (Bodyslamming pillows is cool. Leg dropping pillows on a nice bed is even cooler).

In the beginning that's all it was. "Lumberjack Jess" beating random Pillow characters. But it soon morphed into something bigger. Before long, I had a small cast of characters. Now sometimes "the pillow" would dodge or counter an offensive maneuver. And I'd switch from performing as Wrestler A to performing as Wrestler B. We all know about Ric Flair carrying broomsticks. But did Slick Ric ever carry a pillow? I think not! The pillows became my own personal broomsticks. Yep. I literally "wrestled" pillows on my parents bed for several months   What a loser! It would not become an actual action figure league for several more months. 

Lumberjack Jess

Lumberjack Jess- eventually Hillbilly Jim's figure
Height/Weight: 6'6 313 pounds (one inch smaller than Hogan, but 10 pounds heavier)
Hometown: The Great North Woods
Description- If AWA's Yukon John (later the Berzerker) looked like Hillbilly Jim and got Hulk Hogan's push....and was also basicallyPaul Bunyan.

-The Man. Everybody's favorite Lumberjack would "Jess Up" before once again successfully defending his title with a big boot-leg drop combination. Maybe occasionally slipping in a bodyslam as well. In the beginning, my Pillow Fed revolved around this Hulk Hogan-meets-Paul Bunyan manly man. Oh, about the Paul Bunyan thing....

A few years earlier I was a big fan of this series of Paul Bunyan books I would frequently loan from the library. I also remembered Yukon John from my beloved dying day AWA. So that was another influence. Lumberjack Jess promos (you better believe I cut promos on those dastardly pillows! I would later write them out in my trusty blue notebook) frequently referenced characters from those Paul Bunyan books, such as the awesomely named GOAT cooks- Cream Puff Fatty and Hot Biscuit Slim, along with Ole the Big Swede. While I don't remember this ever happening, it is entirely possible these character from the Paul Bunyan books came to the pillow/action figure league as Lumberjack Jess' backup when he was embroiled in a particularly heated feud.

Now Lumberjack Jess was The Man and all, but if this league did start on the original airdate of that Full House episode, it means Lumberjack Jess was The Champ for approximately 9 months in real time. Do you have any idea how long 9 months is in 92-93 time? That's like the equivalent of 9 years! So I just can't imagine Lumberjack Jess being champion for 9 whole months. I would have become bored with it. That's why I think it was a rerun of the Lumberjack Jess episode which initially inspired the Pillow Fed. 
----------------------------------
*That's it for tonight. Tomorrow I will write about the other characters who competed alongside Lumberjack Jess in the early days of Pillow Wrestling. Then it's on to the transition to the actual wrestling figures, and the first big money angle which solidified this as a long term thing  

Buckle your seatbelts, boys. We're just getting started. Now this won't be quite as long as the Lawlermania Era, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this era get 8-10 loving posts.

Lumberjack Jess Gets a Supporting Cast

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
The Villains

Every great hero needs a great villain or three to vanquish. Three early Jess foils stick with me. Here they are.....

The King- A Harley Race clone with Race's height and weight.

Jess either took the title from The King (unlikely), or The King served as the Lumberjack's most persistent early challenger (more likely). The Jess/King feud was very Hogan/Race inspired. It just made sense to 1992 me (and 2020 me) to put the badass blue collar Lumberjack up against the pompous, snooty King. Jess won all their matches, including the big blowoff, which was either a Title vs. Career match, or saw Jess simply injure The King into retirement. Either way, I definitely recycled WWF's awesome "Harley In The Sky With Diamonds" stuff in the aftermath. The King was done as a full time wrestler (hence no figure description since this was still pre-figures) but would continue to play a major part in other ways. We'll be coming back to him later.

The Bear- Approximately 6'4 287 pounds. Don Muraco's figure for some unknown reason (George "The Animal" Steele being a far more fitting choice). Hometown: Parts Unknown/The Canadian Wilderness

The Bear served as the lead heel in the early days. The whole Bear character (regardless of the true origin story) is pretty dumb in hindsight. But if you're going to be stupid, at least go over the top with it. I can say with confidence that I went way over the top with the boringly named Bear. He had a rather elaborate backstory, or backstories . Now I don't recall the exact details, but it's one of the following. Hell, for all I know I may have used them all at various times....

1. The Bear was rumored to have once been a surly man who had already largely shunned society even before being chased out of his village by angry townspeople over a crime he was accused of committing. He then went to live among the bears(!) in the Canadian wilderness. Or....
2. The Bear had begun life as normal child before losing his parents at a young age and going on to be raised by bears(!). Or....
3. The Bear was a freakish half-human/half-bear hybrid.

It was definitely one of those three. The big Bear/Jess feud may have begun thusly.....
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Lumberjack Jess and his team of 'jacks had just finished the arduous task of clearly all the trees in North Dakota (which is why there are no trees in North Dakota today). It was time for a little rest and relaxation. The GOAT chefs Hot Biscuit Slim and Cream Puff Fatty whipped up the mother of all meals. The Lumberjacks ate and ate for three days ate. They ate piles of flapjacks so big they would have stretched to the moon had you stacked them in a single pile. Then it was time to rest. Lumberjack Jess, having eaten the most, also took the biggest nap....

He woke up a few days later (for lumberjacks always do everything bigger than normies) to total chaos. The lumberjack camp had been ransacked. Several lumberjacks were dead or injured. Several more had disappeared. All the leftovers were gone! "What happened?" Jess asked a young, dazed lumberjack. And that young, dazed lumberjack told the story of.....

THE BEAR! *insert numerous Bear backstories here* It turns out this half-man/half-bear creature had invaded the lumberjack camp. It caught the 'jacks completely unaware. They were all full, tired, or both. This Bear creature gorged both on the flesh of unfortunate lumberjacks and those delightful remaining flapjacks. A large group of surviving lumberjacks lead by Jess' right hand man Ole The Big Swede had set off after The Bear. They decided not to awaken Lumberjack Jess. For Ole wanted to prove himself worthy rather than running back to Jess as usual. Plus the World's Greatest Lumberjack had done the bulk of the work in clearing North Dakota of trees. 

But Lumberjack Jess was no shrinking violet! He immediately set off after The Bear himself. Lumberjack Jess had many adventures tracking The Bear through the Northwestern US and into the wilds of Canada. Many lakes and rivers did he create. While he caught a whiff of The Bear on occasion, and stumbled upon promising tracks here and there, he never did come to face to face with the beast. Over time Jess ran into various parties of his lumberjacks (all with equally thrilling stories to tell) until the whole gang was back together again. Then they gave up their quest to find The Bear and went back to lumberjacking. The Bear was forgotten (by all but Lumberjack Jess) as the years rolled on. It had become more a mythical creature than a real thing. "Stay close to camp or The Bear will get you!" was a half-ironic line frequently used by elderly lumberjacks to greenhorns in line. But Lumberjack Jess never forgot the horror the creature had once caused....
----------------------
And now The Bear was back! For it had found Lumberjack Jess! And the creature had unfinished business with the world's greatest lumberjack.

It turns out one of the lead heel managers (more on them later) had heard tales of The Bear. Desperate to dethrone Lumberjack Jess, this manager traversed the Canadian Wilderness in an attempt to find the creature and tame it just enough to bring it back to civilization with the ultimate goal of using it to defeat the hated Lumberjack Jess. Mission accomplished! 

The Bear was a straight up savage in the ring.Now Lumberjack Jess was hardly a Dean Malenko (who was still a complete unknown, by the way) in the ring, but The Bear lacked even the technical acumen of a Hillbilly Jim. The Bear scratched, clawed, bit, and grabbed its way to victories and disqualifications. For The Bear was, after all, a barely tamed wild man(?). The Bear had 3 big finishing "moves"

1. The Bear Paw- A simple swat with its freakish Bear paw/claw/arm. Fun to do to pillows.
2. The Bear Claw- A Clawhold with its freakish Bear claw
3. The Bear Hug- Duh. He's part bear.

Alas! All the Bear-themed moves in the world were not enough to vanquish the mighty Lumberjack. Jess beat The Bear as payback for its atrocities at the lumberjack camp all those years ago. The Bear remained in the league for a while longer (since I distinctly remember the character getting the Muraco figure) and will pop up one more time in this humongous post. I'm pretty sure The Bear eventually turned on its manager/handler and became a kid friendly midcard babyface act. But the character's peak was as a savage wildman heel in these early days. Also, I unfortunately do not recall ever attaching some sort of toy fist or claw to Muraco's arm to give it that true "Bear paw/claw" effect. Sad. And a definite missed opportunity.

EDIT: D'oh! Forgot to mention The Bear would either return or get a brief repush about a year later after I learned of the Chernobyl disaster. Now he was The Russian Bear and his TRUE backstory was revealed. See, he was a victim of Chernobyl. The nuclear waste is what turned him into a hideous manbear creature. And evil Commie scientists slipped him into the Canadian Wilderness in order to cause havoc and destruction to help pave the way for an eventual Soviet takeover. 

This was all very short-lived, and I can't even remember whether The Bear reverted back to being a heel in order to finally complete his mission, or turned face in order to oppose his long-forgotten Soviet tormentors. 

Bonecrusher Smith- Either 6'5-310 or 6'10-343 (can't remember for sure. maybe both?). One Man Gang's figure. Hailed from Brooklyn, NY which was still perceived as a badass burgh rather than a hipster hangout back in the 90s.

This character was originally inspired by another book I was reading at the time. This was an oddly specific book focusing on young sports stars of the 80s. Roger Clemens, Chris Mullin, NBA flop David Rivers, and figure skater Debi Thomas were just a few of the athletes I remember being profiled in this book. Mike Tyson was another. And the Bonecrusher Smith name was cribbed directly from the Tyson chapter. The real Bonecrusher Smith was a boxer Tyson defeated. I was more than happy to steal this 10/10 name for my burgeoning wrestling league.

Bonecrusher Smith was more of a B show Lumberjack Jess challenger. There wasn't much to this character. He was just another big, badass, brawler being lead by one of the Big 3 heel managers. His in ring style was inspired by boxing (duh) and NWA/WCWs Mean Mark (who it's very possible I only saw wrestle one time). Bonecrusher's finisher was *wait for it*....

The HARD Punch   It was a misinterpretation of Mean Mark's Heart Punch. Bonecrusher's version was just a straight left hook. Oh, I made him a lefty for some reason. Still, twas a fun move to do on pillows.

Bonecrusher quickly sank to the midcard but did stick around long enough (or get brought back a year later) to morph from a Mean Mark ripoff into my Diesel Guy.

The Other Top Good Guy

Boston Strongman- 6'2ish-280something pounds. Ted Arcidi's figure. From Boston. Duh.

Our old friend from the Chalkboard League was resurrected to once again serve as the #2 babyface. He was the perennial secondary champ in the early days of this league. I believe I called it the North American Championship. And even if I didn't, that's what I'm going to call it for the duration of these posts. It just looks better than "#2 champ." 

His character remained the same- A strong man. From Boston. His finisher was the Bearhug. The Bear feuded with The Strongman after being defeated by Lumberjack Jess. I distinctly remember this. Hell, I may have brought the Strongman in and created the North American Title for the sole purpose of doing this one feud. Strongman vs. Bear: Bearhug vs. Bearhug. Who is the strongest? And I distinctly remember the finish to their big match. They simultaneously bearhugged each other! It was the ultimate test of strength. The strongest would prevail. Who would it be......

The Boston Strongman! Duh. Strong is in his name! After winning the Battle of the Bearhugs he likely feuded with (and defeated) Bonecrusher Smith because depth was not really a thing in the early days of this fed.

The Strongman would get phased out pretty early in the transition to actual wrestling figures. And in doing so he would put over the Next Big Thing. But that's a story for another day.....

------------------------

*That's it for now. Next time I'll cover the early Tag Teams and Non-Wrestling Characters

:kane: FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!! :kane:

I just lost a good hour's worth of writing. First time that's happened in a long while. But now I'm pissed and probably putting this project back on hold for the foreseeable future. Now the world may never hear the glorious tales of CC McManus, The Bohemians, and Many Others. How tragic. Fucking internet....

EDIT: Or not. I’ll be back soon simply because I still desire to write about this league’s peak and my one (1) main event booking pattern.

Top Tag Teams. A Few Feuds. Managers. And More!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
*Let's try this one more time. 

Memorable Early Tag Teams

The Bohemians (Herman & Dabney)- Volkoff & Hogan's figures. One weighed 256 lbs. The other 254 lbs. For a combined weight of 510 pounds. They were more or less interchangeable. Hailed from Bohemia. Duh. Dabney got his name from Dabney Coleman, who starred in the sadly short-lived Married With Childrenesque sitcom Drexell's Class. While poor Herman's name came directly from Herman of the board game Guess Who.

The Bohemians were a slightly more polished version of our old friends Heinie & Boto. They were to the tag team scene what Lumberjack Jess was to the main title scene. In other words, they owned it. They were the best Midnight Expressers in the league, as well as the owning the fed's coolest finishers in The Destruction Crew's Wrecking Ball (Doomsday Device) and the Beverly Brothers Shaker Heights Spike. Meaning I inadvertently stole both their finishers from Mike Enos & Wayne Bloom. The Spike was particularly fun to perform on pillows.

Unfortunately, the Bohemians name is yet another Baker Botch. I was just smart enough to be stupid. These Bohemains were not absinthe drinking free love enthusiasts with an interest in art and poetry. I guess I could argue they simply came from the Kingdom of Bohemia. But if I'm being honest, the Bavarians would have been a better fitting name for the mental image I had of them. They were far more Franzl Lang than Jack Kerouac in my head. 

The Bohemians started off as heels. But they were an early version of cool heels. They had the coolest moves. They won all the time against a revolving door of long-forgotten babyface tag teams. Yeah, they double teamed a lot, but it was usually within the boundaries of the rules. And, yeah, they were foreigners, but they were not particularly evil foreigners who espoused (much) anti-American rhetoric. About the only thing keeping them heel was having a hated manager (more on that later). 

So they ditched the manager and solidified their face turn by feuding with.....

The Texas Outlaws (Stan Hansen & Dick Murdoch)- Murdoch was Outback Jack's figure. Hansen rotated between Hogan, Volkoff, and possibly a few others. Both stood around 6'3 285 lbs. And both hailed from The Great State of Texas. 

The Texas Outlaws were my go to "legendary" heel team. They served that role both here and in my later USWA Classics prequel league. The storyline here being The Bohemians ditched their manager and were proclaimed the greatest tag team of all time on the strength of their Lumberjack Jess-level lengthy title reign. But not so fast! That deposed manager went out and brought back the previous consensus GOAT team for a winner takes all GOAT battle. 

The Outlaws were total badasses who won matches with such moves as The Lariat and....The Double Lariat. While I don't remember for sure, chances are they traded the tag titles with The Bohemians a time or two before The Bohemians won the blowoff to be crowned the undisputed GOAT tag team.

Then Hansen turned on Murdoch and that became a big feud eventually leading to the debut of a brand new spinoff character. But that's a story for another day....

It's worth noting Hansen & Murdoch were the first real wrestlers to be used in this league. I will also point out The Bohemians stuck around for a pretty long time (or were eventually brought back) to put over the next GOAT team. Again, this is a story for a later date.

Sailing Seaver & "Dangerous" Dave Stewart- Seaver was Honkytonk Man's figure. Stewart was Greg Valentine. Seaver hailed from Mobile, AL. Forget where Stewart came from. Both were in the 6'0 235 pound range, which made them small guys in 92-93 wrestling. 

Two recycled characters from the original late 80s league. They were basically my Rockers, right down to the big breakup angle. In a previous post I referred to them as The Daredevils. That may be a retcon. It's just as likely they were called The High Flyers, or I may have even lazily labeled them The Pitchers. I mentioned how the Sailing Seaver name came from a blurb in a book chapter on Tom Seaver, and how Dave Stewart was a Baker Botch of AWA's Johnnie Stewart. What I forgot to mention is there was a real Dave Stewart who was a perennial 20 game winner for the Oakland A's around this time. Meaning both guys had baseball-inspired names.

Anyway, I can't remember if I recycled the whole breakup storyline from my previous league, or just went right into renewing the feud. My guess is I did recycle the whole entire storyline. It's likely they were The Bohemians first challenger. The Bohemians won. And Stewart went all Shawn Michaels on his "Marty" Sailing Seaver. They had already popularized high flying and hardcore wrestling before it was cool, and here they likely just picked up where they left off. 

The big twist here is "The Marty" Sailing Seaver prevailed over Stewart's heel "Michaels." They feuded over the #3 singles title, which I probably called the TV Title. And even if I didn't, that is what it shall be referred to from here on out. They traded it back and forth until Seaver won the belt and the feud. Stewart was phased out while Seaver remained a staple in the North American/TV Title scene for quite some time. It's worth noting Sailing Seaver was only character to compete in 3 of my 4 action figure league "eras."

Their matches were fun to perform, both in figure and pillow form. In the bedroom I'd perform high flying moves by jumping off my parents dresser onto the bed  I did once break the bed (WHOOPS!) but I don't think that occurred here. 

EDIT: Special Bonus Duo

Doc South (or possibly DOC SOUTH)- Nailz ripoff. Outback Jack's figure*, probably. Approximately 6'5 300 pounds. From The State Penitentiary
Master of the Crossroads- Papa Shango ripoff. Junkyard Dog's figure*. Like 6'6 330 lbs. Probably from Haiti.

*Assuming they made it beyond the pillow stage at all. Cant remember for sure.

Sometimes great characters just don't translate well to action figure league/fanfic stuff. Shango was my 2nd favorite wrestler in 1992. While I hated Nailz, I at least hated him in the good way. But neither character really clicked here. So they were likely jobbed out to Lumberjack Jess and/or the Boston Strongman after strong initial pushes. Then they disappeared forever. 

The Managers

*Played a massive role in this league. I was a child of 80s WWF where the likes of Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart were often at least as important as the wrestlers they managed. And that influence definitely came into play here. Lumberjack Jess and the other top faces didn't necessarily feud with the actual wrestlers so much as they feuded with the managers behind those wrestlers. Nearly every heel had a manager. The following were the Big 3 in the managerial ranks for a very long time....

CC "Cash and Carry" McManus- The Super Agent. Ted Dibiase's figure. I (almost certainly erroneously) remember him managing basically every top heel. He was the Heenan to Lumberjack Jess' Hulk Hogan. There was also a bit of Dibiase about this character. 

The CC "Cash and Carry" part of his name came from a blurb in yet another sports book. This one about early football great, Red Grange. Grange had a sleazy manager/agent named CC "Cash and Carry" Pyle. The "McManus" part of his name came from a lacrosse coach I had. Just thought it was a cool name. 

Bonecrusher Smith was almost certainly a McManus guy. He would manage many more top guys in the years to follow, and will play a major role in later chapters of this story. Think of him as our Heenan/Heyman.

The King- Our old friend from a few posts back. He started life as the Harley Race to Lumberjack Jess' Hulk Hogan. Got injured. Retired. Became a manager. May have brought The Bear in as revenge (it was either him or McManus, and The King being the one to bring him in as payback on the man who sent him into retirement makes the most sense).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he morphed from a Harley Race clone into a wisecracking Jerry Lawler clone once that King started doing commentary on WWF TV. By this point he was pulling double duty as both a manager and a commentator in the style of Bobby Heenan.

He would manage many of the pompous/annoying characters in the years to come. So imagine Jerry Lawler as Jimmy Hart. We will come back to him later. 

The Louisville Slugger/Louisville Lip- Think I used both names. He was a blatant Jim Cornette ripoff who managed most of the top tag teams and evil foreigners. For example, I'm fairly certain he was the manager The Bohemians turned on. Which would also make him the guy who brought in Hansen & Murdoch as revenge.

Like McManus & The King, he will play a large role in later installments of this series.

*The King & Louisville also had "talk shows" in the style of The Brother Love Show where big angles and debuts often took place. 
*I don't think I had later 'manager' figures like Heenan, The Ref, and Slick yet. So the actual figures I used for King & Louisville varied. Sometimes it would be Dibiase or Piper (with Piper being the skinniest and lightest of the wrestling figures). Other times they would be 'invisible' and I would just use my hand to interfere. You had to have an imagination with this stuff. 

The Commish

Mr. Staley- This character predated this particular league. Mr. Staley started life as a character in even nerdier games my brother and I played involving stuffed animals. Mr. Staley began life as an evil billionaire. Think Mr. Spacely from The Jetsons meets Scrooge McDuck from the first few episodes of Duck Tales meets "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase. Staley eventually became a reformed character, morphing into a benevolent billionaire in the style of Scrooge McDuck in every other episode of Duck Tales. Again, the whole Mr. Staley character arc took place long before this particular league.

His name came ancient NFL team the Decatur Staleys, who were the forerunners of the Chicago Bears. Mr. Staley obviously hailed from Decatur, IL. 

He was the commissioner/owner/benevolent boss. I used him as my Jack Tunney. He'd only show up once or twice a "season*" to make a major announcement, or address a controversy, most of which were caused by CC McManus. 

*Unless I used him as my babyface commentator. That's very possible. It was either him or my own personal "Garth Jackson" gimmick name. 

Rule #1

I was self-aware enough to realize every single league we had ever done was dominated by big men. Young me just couldn't envision anyone less than Hulk Hogan (or his clones) beating 450+ pound giants. So rather than have every main event feud be a Hogan stand in vs. an Andre stand in, as it had been in all my other leagues, I started this fed with a 350 pound weight limit. Nobody over 350 pounds could compete. I even used this in an early storyline when some long-forgotten wrestler came into a match overweight and had to forfeit. 

Unfortunately, this lack of true monsters made Lumberjack Jess unbeatable. And therefore boring. Assuming Bonecrusher Smith did weigh 343 pounds, that's only 30 more pounds than Lumberjack Jess. No self respecting top babyface would have trouble slamming a guy who only outweighed him by 30 pounds. 

Now I can already here the groans. "But, Baker! You're playing with toys! By yourself! Just have somebody beat Lumberjack Jess, ya moron! It's not hard!"

Au contraire, mon frere. It doesn't work that way. You see, this was Serious Business. I valued authenticity. If I couldn't believe in something, I wouldn't do it. 

So I came up with a solution....

The Lawsuit That Changed Wrestling

CC McManus was Lumberjack Jess' most persistent foil. He and his men kept failing. So he devised a new strategy. He had an honest-to-goodness monster lined up for Lumberjack Jess. There was only one problem. This mystery monster exceeded the 350 pound weight limit. Mr. Staley wasn't having it. So CC McManus sued Mr. Staley and his promotion over discrimination. I guess CC McManus became a lawyer in addition to being an agent and a rich guy because CC McManus was all things evil. Fwiw this storyline was almost certainly inspired by another of my favorite early 90s tv shows in the great Picket Fences.

CC McManus shocked the world by winning this lawsuit. It was a relatively narrow victory, mind you. The weight limit only got raised to 400 pounds (for bullshit reasons that likely only made sense to 92-93 me). But that was enough for CC McManus to introduce The Mastodon who would change wrestling forever.....
--------------------------------
Next Time: The first big money angle leads to business taking off and this project consuming much of my alone time. This was my Hogan/Andre, Austin/Vince, Lawler/Dundee moment. And it kicked off the peak league year of 1993.

Business Picks Up

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
Setting The Stage

We're now in early 1993 and my interest in pro wrestling is once again trending upward.

1992 was honestly not one of my favorite wrestling years. I was a one promotion man and my (once?) beloved WWF was no longer really wowing me. The Mountie was gone. Shango had long been de-pushed and was now just a glorified JTTS. Flair lost his belt to that stupid overpushed midcard champ Bret Hart, and even HE was feuding with stupid overpushed midcard challengers. Say what you will about Hogan & Warrior, and I'll say plenty, but at least I could respect them as Big Deals. Not so much with Bret. While I did like Michaels, I wasn't really buying him as the #2 man in the company either. 

But business was picking up. Newbies like The Narcissist, Doink, and even early Giant Gonzalez intrigued me. Money Inc. were finally about to embark upon something interesting. Mr. Perfect was back. And while he was a good guy feuding with my new faves, he was just too darn cool to fully turn on. Especially with those epic Perfect Vignettes right around the corner. 

I also rediscovered WCW after losing touch with the promotion for a three year span, minus the one exception of the Black Scorpion Era. Having been gone for so long, nearly everything about WCW was new, fresh, exciting. WCW had a whiff of exoticism about it simply by being Not WWF. Kilgore has also mentioned this a time or two. It was just different. I got a ton of ideas for shows, wrestlers, and storylines from 1993 WCW. Is it any wonder I chose that era to be my very first PW fanfic project?

So with my fandom rising, a perfect storm of three seemingly unrelated events came together to spawn an idea which caused my little promotion to boom. Here are those events...

1. My introduction to Vader. He was a badass monster who actually won the championship.Why even such greats as Earthquake & Kamala never actually won the championship! I likely decided to have a Vader Guy the first time I saw the Rocky Mountain Mastodon in action.
2. Narcissus hype. For weeks Bobby Heenan teased The Unveiling of Narcissus. I was intrigued.
3. Yokozuna wins the Royal Rumble. Now I wasn't really buying into Yoko yet, and was lukewarm at best about the decision, but just the idea of an unproven, monstrous newbie winning the Royal Rumble was something different.

These three things occurring in rapid succession no doubt had an influence on.....

The Colossus Cometh

I ended my last post by writing about the angle where CC McManus won a lawsuit causing the 350 pound weight limit to be raised to 400 lbs. McManus than teased The Unveiling of Colossus for my own Royal Rumble show (my events tended to roughly coincide with the big WWF/WCW show of the month). Why even the names Narcissus & Colossus are similar!

At my Royal Rumble, CC McManus did unveil the monster he had been teasing for weeks...

6'4-396 pounds. From the Rocky Mountains. King Kong Bundy's figure. Vader's moveset. And basically everything else Vader related. This is....

THE COLOSSUS!

Colossus then went on to (probably) win the Royal Rumble in his very first night with the company, most likely last eliminating The Boston Strongman to seal the deal. And with it the match was set....

The undefeated, undisputed champion of the world Lumberjack Jess vs. CC McManus' latest and greatest monster The Colossus. This was it. The Big One. Our Hogan/Andre...This promotion's version of Flair/Funk...A precursor to USWA's Lawler/Dundee epics... Simply put, the biggest match yet....

More Storytime

Now I can't remember exactly when I made the transition from pillows to the figures. In all honesty, probably late 1992. I definitely remember using the figures for the Colossus' Royal Rumble win. This is when the promotion REALLY picked up. I was so into my little Lumberjack Jess/Colossus storyline. This when my humble little wrestling fed became my big alone time passion. I distinctly remember lying awake in bed at night coming up with angles, promos, storylines, and match ideas. I also remember furtively writing out wrestling league related stuff in school when I was supposed to be doing my schoolwork. This didn't just happen once or twice. It was pretty much every day. Usually in multiple classes.

Whenever I think of this league 1993 is the year that comes to mind. Now it lasted from about mid 92-mid 95, and maybe some of the peak bled over into 1994, but  I remember so much specific league-related stuff that I can accurately date to 1993. Writing out shows in a particular class.....Having a card on a particular night when my parents and brother were out that I can date to 1993....Stealing 1993 storylines and characters from the Big Two.....Coming up with ideas at a funeral. That sort of thing. 

I did not use all my wrestling figures for the league. Not even close. I'd only pull out about 12-20 at a time. That's why you'll see so many characters sharing a figure. I cannot remember exactly why I did this. Maybe the box of wrestlers was too heavy, or too awkwardly positioned in its "storage" area to move? Actually....I think the bottom of the big cardboard box we kept the wrestlers in at the time was broken. Meaning if I went to pick up they'd all fall out. I could also quickly hide a dozen or so wrestlers if I was "caught in the act." There was a bit of shame in this. I was "too old" to be playing with toys. So I only did it when I knew I'd be alone, lest I be ridiculed.

I also did not run shows with anywhere near the frequency of the latter USWA Era. I tried timing my shows to coincide roughly with big WWF/WCW shows. Plus, with two parents and a brother constantly lurking about, I wasn't alone all that often. I'd estimate I only ran a show about every 3 weeks. The rest of that time was spent hyping this shit in my head and on paper (most frequently in my short, squat little blue notebook). 

I usually just ripped off WWF & WCW pay per views for show names. Plus Coliseum Home Video tapes like Rampage and Wrestlefest. My old favorite, the Crockett Cup, was used at least once a year for the big tag team tournament. Survivor Series & Lethal Lottery were two other personal favorites.

Country was my musical genre of choice in those days. The two big local country music radio stations were forever hyping a big country music festival called Jamboree In The Hills. I combined this with Slamboree to create "Slamboree On The Hills." This was another one of my big shows in spite of the minor Baker Botch.

I did not have a proper working ring. Instead I used a square yellow board with imaginary ropes and turnbuckles for my ring. It worked out well. Was hard. Made a good noise. Was just the right size. My brother and I called it "Colorado" due to it resembling the Colorado puzzle piece from our United States puzzle. 

For Royal Rumbles and Lethal Lottery's I would write all the wrestler names on little scraps of paper and pick them at random. My drawings were NOT worked. It was all a shoot, brother. 

Lumberjack Jess vs. The Colossus

So The Match of the Millennium is set. My Hogan/Andre. Interest had never been greater. The undefeated Lumberjack vs. the monstrous Colossus. What would happen??

The Colossus wins! Lumberjack Jess' potentially 9 month reign is over! This was either a total squash or a legit 20 minute epic. Sadly, I cannot remember. My gut leans squash though. Because I know Lumberjack Jess was "injured" for a long time. 

While Jess was out with injury, the Legend of The Colossus grew. This was his "Vader run" where he defeated every other babyface of note, injuring most of them in the process. I am almost certain he ended Boston Strongman's career during this stretch since I do not remember the Strongman from Boston being used from here on out. That's HUGE! Chances are I hyped The Strongman as the man to avenge Lumberjack Jess and finally win the big one in the process. Then BAM! Another Colossus conquest. I milked the big Jess/Colossus rematch for as long as I possibly could. Interest was booming with The Colossus on top. No need to hurry. But finally I could postpone it no more....

The rematch was probably the legit 20 minute epic. Keep in mind that means I played with toys for 20 minutes just to do one match! But I had booked myself into a corner. I wasn't ready to have The Colossus lose yet. He was my pet character at the time. But Lumberjack Jess could ill afford to take back to back losses. He'd be done. So I came up with a compromise....

This one definitely ended in controversy. I forget the details, but remember the controversy. Because it would lead to the biggest show EVER. The belt was held up. Vacant was the champ. Mr. Staley announced a tournament to crown a new champion.....

Mr. Smith & Mr. Morris

Mr. Smith- Junkyard Dog's figure. About 6'1 266 pounds. From Chicago, IL. Morphed into my Ron Simmons Guy. Had a revolving door of finishers including the powerslam, spinebuster, and flying clothesline/shoulderblock. No relation to our old friend Bonecrusher Smith.
Mr. Morris- Don Muraco's figure. About 6'3 277 lbs. From New York City. Think a smaller, white Mr. Hughes. Used Mr. Hughes' weird Bossman Slam-style finisher.

These two served as CC McManus' hired goon henchmen. They were basically a more competent, less comedic version of Rocksteady & Bebop. They were middle of the midcard. Beat the guys they were supposed to beat. Lost to the guys they were supposed to lose to. Sometimes they teamed. Sometimes they wrestled individually. Colossus' next challenger often beat one or both in route to earning their title shot.

The Mr. Morris name came from yet another book. This time it was one my brother was reading for school (that I borrowed and sped through in a few days, as usual) called The Pushcart Wars which featured a character called Morris The Florist. Sadly, there was nothing floral about my Mr. Morris. Anyway, Morris & Smith were not the most entertaining characters, but they did serve a purpose as heel gatekeepers.....

Until they split up. A series of miscommunications leading to a string of losses caused Smith to either being fired by McManus, and attacked by Morris. Or Smith quit on his own accord after Mr. Morris "accidentally" struck him one time too many. Or maybe McManus tried selling Smith's contract to The Louisville Lip or King, and Smith rejected the idea of being bought and sold a la Hercules a few years earlier in WWF? I don't remember the exact details, but I definitely remember Smith turning face, dropping the "Mr.," and gaining the first name "Jackson." Mr. Morris and the newly christened Jackson Smith were feuding in the midcard leading up to the Big Tournament.....

*Mr. Smith was replaced in McManus' stable by another "Mr."- this one being Mr. Nicodemus. We will come back to him later.
--------------------
*Next Time: A Tournament for the Title! My Wrestlemania IV! The biggest show in league history sees the rise of a new hero.....

Jan 19, 2020 10:20:00 GMT JTJ said:

This is my favorite wrestling thing ever!

Thanks for the compliment. I am just glad people are reading. I have wanted to write about this stuff for years. Just never got around to it until now.

The Big Tournament/A Star Is Born/A New Monster Emerges

SPOILER: Click to show

Thinking Out Loud

I have mentioned before in other threads how hyped I was for Wrestlemania IV. You'd have to go all the way to Wrestlemania XIV to find a 'Mania I was more excited to watch. To kiddie me, WM 4 was THE show. Even more so than Wrestlemania III. I just thought the big tournament for the title was the biggest, coolest thing ever. Hogan actually losing the belt in a GOAT level angle showed that anything really could happen in the WWF. My underdeveloped brain truly believed that anybody (Ted Dibiase! Dino Bravo!) could win the tournament, and the belt along with it. 

So it was only natural that I would steal the idea for my own league. I've spent a lot of time today trying to pinpoint exactly when my tournament did occur...

KOTR time seems logical. It's only natural that WWF running another major tournament would remind me of the big tourney from my youth. Plus the wrestlers and angles in my own fed seem to coincide roughly with the real life KOTR. So June-ish 1993 is almost certainly when my big tournament took place.....

BUT the way I remember it I did this show on one particular night. For a few years there we would go ice skating a couple times a year every winter. Now I was never much of a skater, spending most of my time hugging the wall while my younger brother and even younger cousin would zoom right by me. But these were fun outings, nevertheless. We'd usually bring a friend or two and meet up with members of my extended family for a wholesome few hours of ice skating. 

Yet I distinctly remember backing out on this one particular night. It was a Friday night. I either pretended I was sick, or claimed to have a lot of homework. But the real reason for wanting to stay home that night is I hadn't been able to do my league in a long time. I was falling behind, dammit! And being home alone for the bare minimum of three hours would give me a chance to really go overboard and put on the greatest show of all time. I recall this as clearly as if it happened yesterday.

And I always thought this was the night of my big tournament. But nobody goes ice skating in June! The ice skating night would've had to be in March at the very latest*. So something is off here. Plus the timing doesn't really work out with my storylines coinciding with real life storylines. So maybe the Great Ice Skating Ditch of 1993 was was the night of the first Lumberjack Jess vs. Colossus match? Although....March also meant March Madness. Which meant I'd be obsessed with brackets. And what better way to practice my burgeoning bracketology skillz than by booking my own wrestling tournament? I suppose I will never get to the bottom of this mystery....although it's PROBABLY June 1993. Anyway, enough rambling....

*EDIT: Not being able to do a show in March 1993 checks out. Just remembered that was one of the years we were off school a lot due to blizzard(s). Blizzard + school closings meant parents, brother, and friends would always be hanging around. This meant no alone time. And no alone time meant no league. 

Crowning A New Champion

So now it's likely June-ish 1993 and we're about to embark on the biggest show yet. 14 men (all seeded, of course) competing in a Tournament for the vacant Title. In an homage to Hogan/Andre, the former champs Lumberjack Jess & Colossus would lock horns for the 3rd time in the second round with both men receiving first round byes. 

Sometimes I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go ahead of time. Other times I'd just wing it and come up with finishes on the fly. This tournament stumped me. Once again, I had no idea what to do with Colossus/Jess. Let alone anybody else! Colossus & Jess were the clear favorites. Yet I still wasn't ready for either man to take a loss. And I sure as heckfire didn't have a Next Big Thing lined up. 

Jackson Smith beat his friend-turned-foe Mr. Morris in the first round. I guess inspired again by Hogan/Andre at the real Wrestlemania IV I had Colossus & Jess wrestle to another draw. Their first match was (probably) a total squash to establish The Colossus as the ultimate monster. Their second match was (probably) the 20 minute epic. This one was the wild brawl. The ref had no choice but to throw it out. Now the two favorites were out! I had no idea where I was going with this. Had I booked myself into a corner......?

During the next Jackson Smith match I had a revelation. He would become my Ron Simmons Guy. Smith won another match or two and finally defeated his replacement in CC McManus' stable, Mr. Nicodemus, to become the NEEEEWWWW World Champion. All the babyfaces, including Lumberjack Jess, hoisted the new champ on their shoulders as the "crowd" went wild. A new star was born.

Jackson Smith vs. The Colossus/Meet Mr. Nicodemus

Colossus and McManus were PISSED. The big man had lost his title without ever being pinned or submitted. It was a conspiracy, dammit! They disrespected Jackson Smith by dismissing him as a lucky midcarder (though obviously not in those exact terms since it would be at least 3 more years before I knew what a midcarder was). They DEMANDED a match with the new champ. And because Jackson Smith was a bah gawd fighting champ, their wish was granted.

The big Jackson Smith vs. Colossus match is another one I distinctly remember. Inspired by Vader vs. Sting at Starrcade '92 (which WCW must have talked about, or maybe even aired in parts?), Jackson Smith utilized a Sting-via-Muhammad Ali rope a dope strategy. Colossus dominated but could never put Smith away. For the new champ was all heart! As the match progressed, the big man started tiring. He took a little too long climbing the ropes. And Smith turned a Colossus flying move into a powerslam for the HUUUUUGE win. Jackson Smith had now reached Hulk Hogan, or even Lumberjack Jess levels of popularity. 

Oh, and at some point I absolutely stole WCW's Masters of the Powerbomb idea. My version had Colossus (Vader) & Mr. Nicodemus (Sid) vs. Jackson Smith & Lumberjack Jess. I wanted to hold off writing about Mr. Nicodemus, but since he's all over these last two posts.....

Mr. Nicodemus- If Sid was British and looked like Punchout's Von Kaiser. Hailed from The North of England. Had Sid's moveset. Ken Patera and Big John Studd's figures. Originally managed by CC McManus. McManus would soon sell his contract to Mr. Nic's fellow Brits Sir William Beany (Baker Botch!) and Lord Steven Regal(!). Nicodemus would then become His Lordship's "Diesel." 6'6-301 pound. Note the singular. I did this thing where if a number ended in '1' it was pronounced in the singular, not plural. Nobody had a million and one pounds of bananas. It was a million and one pound of banana. Pretty sure this started as yet another goofy way to troll my brother, but I did it so often that I genuinely came to believe it was a real thing. 

The riddle of Colossus had now been solved. The big man was about to be made expendable. He would quickly be phased out. Chances are Lumberjack Jess got his win back to keep him strong. But only so he could put over The Next Big Thing.....

Finneus J. Blount and His Friend Make A Splash

Finneus J. Blount- 6'10- 367 pounds. Big John Studd's figure. From Annapolis, MD. Finisher: A Banzai Drop he called "Anchor's Away" (Baker Botch!).
Wrestling Style: Big John Studd at the 1989 Royal Rumble meets Yokozuna. Meaning he was an 80s suplex master with a Banzai Drop finisher.
He was my Yokozuna Guy. Oh, and it's pronounced "Blunt." The 'o' was silent. First name was yet another Baker Botch of Phineas from Jason and the Argonauts. 

Character: Disgraced former Naval officer who was dishonorably discharged for reasons I forget. Treason, probably. Whatever the reason, being kicked out of the Navy gave Finneus J. Blount a burning hatred of America. His best friend was.....

Mark "The Shark" Henderson- About 6'0-236 lbs. Billy Jack Haynes' figure as a face. Hulk Hogan as a heel. His heel finisher was a flying knee drop. As a face I think it was a Thesz Press, though I didn't actually know it was called a Thesz Press in those days. Hailed from Little Rock, Arkansas. This hometown is the most important thing about "The Shark." Henderson would peak as my Eddie Gilbert/Roddy Piper Guy with his character being a shit stirring, trash talking, manager/wrestler.

Mark "The Shark" started life as a seemingly innocent (and ineffective) low carder. He typically teamed with fellow smallish low carders (and there were A LOT of them whom I will cover at a later date) in losing efforts. He always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also had an AWESOME(ly bad) alter ego I will cover later. At some point his heel alter ego was revealed. It turns out Mark "The Shark" had been a babyface saboteur this entire time. It's right there in the name! Mark "THE SHARK!" Duh!

See, it turns out Mark "The Shark" was yet another treacherous anti-American. His reason for turning on the USA was he had grown up with President Bill Clinton in Arkansas......and HATED him. I forget the exact details, but I framed it where "The Shark" was clearly in the wrong.

Tangent Time: Young, politically naive me thought hatred of the President, regardless of his political party, was borderline treasonous. Just be glad I decided to skip the bound-to-be-lengthy "Politics In The 90s" segment I had planned for this post.

With Henderson's secret identity (THE MASKED POLLUTER!!!!!!!! more on that later) having been exposed, "The Shark" recruited his fellow turncoat* to wreak havoc on the patriotic babyfaces of The League.

*Blount & Henderson were basically a proto-Sid & The Kid....if Sid & The Kid had done an anti-American gimmick. I'm fairly certain they were also managed by (or at least strongly affiliated with) The Louisville Lip/Slugger. In hindsight, the first half of my league in 1993 was very WCW inspired, while the second half of the year is dominated by the USA vs. Anti-Americans stuff WWF was doing.

*Also, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced the Big Tournament did take place in June, while the Ice Skating Night in March was Colossus/Jess I. This also checks out since that match was basically my "Wrestlemania." 

Finneus J. Blount shocked the world by DOMINATING LUMBERJACK JESS(!) in route to victory in his first big match. There was also a big Blount & Shark vs. Jess & Chesapeake John(! more on him later) tag match or two around this time. Jess would never be a top guy again, though he did stick around longer than most former top guys. For the rest of his run he'd serve as a gatekeeper babyface and tag partner to the aforementioned Chesapeake John. This shows how my league progressed. A few months earlier Jess & Colossus were the undisputed Top Guys. By this point Colossus is already gone, or being phased out, while Jess is strictly a midcard gatekeeper who will never even sniff World Championship status again. It was only natural to have the new arch-villain Blount lock horns with the new hero Jackson Smith.....

Jackson Smith vs. Finneus J. Blount

Finneus J. Blount got that nuclear heat by dethroning The Champ, likely injuring him in the process, and winning any rematches which may have occurred. Smith was now also done as a top guy, though he would have one more big angle I will cover in a few days.

The Aftermath

Finneus J. Blount was now the undefeated, undisputed, Heavyweight Champion of the World. He had squashed Lumberjack Jess and destroyed Jackson Smith to win the belt. Jess & Smith had also failed to slam the disgraced Midshipman. Being lighter than The Colossus, who both Jess & Smith had slammed, I had to come up with a b.s. reason why Blount was so hard to slam. The idea I came up with was Blount being 6'10 made him too tall to get a proper hold of with which to execute a slam.

With the seemingly unslammable Finneus J. Blount now on top of the world, his little toady Mark "The Shark" announced a BodySlam challenge to be held on the deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid as an "FU" to the Navy on......Labor Day, probably, since my storylines were always a few months behind those of real life WWF & WCW. 

-----------------------------
Next Time: The Blount Bodyslam Challenge! Will a true blue American hero emerge to slam the giant? Or will wrestling's greatest villain have the last laugh at the US Navy's expense? And where do we go from there? Tune in next time to find out! 

Late 1993: Business Booms In The Basement

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
The Wider World of Wrestling

My interest in the product(s) had never been higher. 1993 was well on its way to becoming my favorite wrestling year to date. Both promotions were killing it.

WCW's Vader/Cactus feud had captured my interest more than any feud the company had put on since at least Sting/Black Scorpion, if not going all the way back to Flair/Funk. I also had a new Baker Guy in Lord Steven Regal, who almost immediately became my new favorite WCW wrestler. Fun, Baker-approved midcard acts in the Texicans and Maxx Payne were all over my newly beloved Worldwide, while longtime favorite Flair was.....out there successfully doing stuff. OK, so I weirdly liked more than loved 1993 Ric Flair, but he was still NWA Champ, and he was still RIC F'N FLAIR. That is always going to be good enough.

WCW was damn good. But they still had to settle for being #2. Because WWF had become great again. I have mentioned many times before how over Lex Luger was in my neighborhood. Aside from a soccer teammate, and early Cactus Jack fan named Greg, I cannot recall any of my peers discussing wrestling for the 18 months between the 92 Rumble and Luger slamming Yoko. Wrestling was no longer "cool." Then BAM! Luger slams Yoko. And suddenly many of my classmates are discussing pro wrestling again. Not only that, but people are actually ordering pay per views! And I was watching them! Yes, for the first time since WM 7 I got to see live-ish pay per views in SummerSlam 93 and Survivor Series 93. WWF was red hot again in my neck of the woods. I once even "proved" Luger was Big In Baltimore via the use of Baltimore Arena attendance numbers. Given these surroundings, I absolutely bought into Luger as the Next Hulk Hogan.

But you know what? Hogan sucked. And so did "Made In The USA" Lex Luger. So I was all about his foils. And what foils they were! Ludvig f'n Borga! "Squasher of Hulkamania" Yokozuna! Their buddies The Quebecers! For the 30th time, the Foreign Fanatics were pretty much the greatest thing ever. Then you had the epic Bret/Lawler feud, which had me buying into both guys as main event superstars. Yeah, Bret's first reign was glorified midcard crap, but after winning KOTR and feuding with THE King, I absolutely bought into Bret as a Top Guy. Lawler was just The Man. Out of all cool 1993 wrestlers "The King" was my absolute favorite from KOTR until he took a brief hiatus around Survivor Series. Michaels had grown into a fine IC Champ. IRS was great as the biggest dick heel in all of wrestling. Doink was still awesome for a few more minutes. Undertaker was still his reliably awesome self....until he made the mistake of targeting my man Yoko. I was SO conflicted at first (until I eventually sided with Da Big Yoke). And the intriguing Jeff Jarrett had just debuted when the year ended, providing me with yet another wrestler I looked forward to seeing every week.

It was just a really fun time to be a wrestling fan.....at least for through the warped perspective of this weirdo. And all this WWF goodness had an enormous effect on my own wrestling league.....

The Slam Heard 'Round America

Finneus J. Blount was now the undefeated, undisputed, unslammed anti-American Champion of the World. Being on top of the world, Blount and his hypeman Mark "The Shark" Henderson issued a Bodyslam Challenge where they invited every American athlete to the deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid on Labor Day to try slamming The Champ. This was their ultimate FU to the very Navy which had once disgraced Blount by kicking him out. All the babyface American wrestlers in my fed (and probably some American heels too. Not to mention fictional athletes. Oh yeah. I had them too. Doorknob Clinton~!) lined up to slam the champ. They all failed. Blount was not above playing dirty. So it's very likely he kidney punched, or threw knees to the gut, of the Jackson Smith's and Lumberjack Jess' of the world in order to prevent them from doing the deed. All this went on while "The Shark" provided running commentary, bashing all the "weak/soft Americans" who failed to slam the giant. Was this it? Would no hero emerge to do it for America......?

Of course not! But before I get to that, I just have to say I took the absolute laziest way out. In hindsight, there are so many more entertaining directions I could have taken. How about (a returning?) Colossus turning face by slamming Blount? He absolutely could have done the deed And where are the Rocky Mountains if not in the United States of America? Or I could have had Lumberjack Jess slam The Champ only to have it disqualified because it turned out Jess was from the Canadian side of the Great North Woods. That would have been a fun, heat getting angle with Blount & The Shark claiming it never happened on a technicality when it quite clearly did. Though I admit it might have been the wrong kind of heat for a top monster heel. 

Anyway, as Blount & The Shark were gloating, a bah gawd red, white, and blue helicopter landed on the deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid. The buzz was palpable as...

The debuting Patriot emerged to slam Blount! America rejoiced!

The Patriot- 6'5-275. From Washington DC. Ken Patera's figure. My "Made In The USA" Lex Luger Guy. But with Ultimate Warrior's Flying Shoulder Block(s)-Gorilla Press Drop-Big Splash finishing sequence.... for some reason.
EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, I had already given.....somebody else Lex Luger's loaded forearm gimmick. Just can't remember who. Jeff Gaylord, maybe? This Mystery Man predated The Patriot by quite some time. And even if he hadn't, it doesn't really make sense to give your top babyface a 'weapon' gimmick. Certainly not in 1993, at any rate.

So Blount/Patriot became my Yoko/Luger. Only my Luger wasn't a choke artist! Patriot beat Blount at the next big show in what may well have been his very first match in the fed. It's very likely he not only slammed Blount in that match, but Gorilla Press Dropped him in route to victory. Blount would stick around continuing to stir shit with The Shark, but he would no longer be the top heel. That honor would go to.....

The Hellraising Hammer From Helsinki

Helsinki Hellraiser/Hammer- I used both names. 6'5 300 pounds. Obviously my Ludvig Borga Guy. He had Borga's moveset and general demeanor. Ken Patera's figure or Greg Valentine's if he was wrestling The Patriot (as he usually was).

Patriot/Blount quickly transitioned to Patriot/Helsinki just as real life saw Luger/Yoko morph into Luger/Borga. Patriot/Helsinki was now the big feud. The Hammer (as I will refer to him from here on out) won the title only to lose it back to The Patriot, probably at our Royal Rumble equivalent. This made Patriot the first ever two time champion. 

Listmania

And it's here where I lose the plot in terms of the championship lineage. Despite this happening 27 years ago, I am fairly certain to the point where I would put money on it that the Championship lineage went.....

Lumberjack Jess
Colossus
Jackson Smith
Finneus J. Blount
Patriot
Helsinki Hammer/Hellraiser
Patriot (2)

That's about a year and a half in real time. And that is one hell of a run. Check out this list of back to back feuds.....

Lumberjack Jess vs. The Colossus
The Colossus vs. Jackson Smith
Jackson Smith vs. Finneus J. Blount
Finneus J. Blount vs. The Patriot
The Patriot vs. Helsinki Hellraiser/Hammer

Whoa! That's some damn good stuff. You'd be hard pressed to find a better continuous collection of feuds in wrestling history than that murderer's row of rivalries. Although....

Hilariously in hindsight, every single main event program I ran during this stretch followed the same exact formula. All the top babyfaces were powerhouses, patriots, or best of all, Patriotic Powerhouses. All the top heels were monsters, anti-Americans, or best of all, Monstrous Anti-Americans. I had one (1) main event storyline! And I thought I was sooooo clever at the time. smh. 

I do remember a few champs that followed. Probably most, even! But I'm drawing a blank on the order, and there are a whole lot of wrestlers who may or may not have won the big one. I just don't remember.

But I'm getting way ahead of myself. The huge show from the Patriot Era was that year's Survivor Series. Let's talk about a few of the other important characters who may have played a big role on that GOAT level show.....

The Supporting Cast

The Quebecers- Jacques & Pierre- Jacques weighed 256 pounds and was usually Beefcake's figure. Pierre weighed around 273 lbs. and was usually Outback Jack's figure. They were the top tag team during this stretch. Aligned with Blount, Hammer, Shark, and Louisville. Had the coolest moveset/Midnight Expresses. Were also the first (and only?) act to have THEME MUSIC~! See, I borrowed an NES game called WWF Steel Cage from my friend Matt The IRS Fan. The Mountie was in this game. And so was a Nintendo version of his epic theme. So I would fire up my Nintendo and play Mountie's theme whenever The Quebecers were wrestling. 

They held the Tag Titles for a very long time. After they vanquished every other babyface team of note, the already-legendary BOHEMIANS made their triumphant return. Now I cannot be certain of this, but it's very likely I had The Bohemians "studying to become US citizens" to explain their months-long absence. This was like the Bohemians/Texas Outlaws feud in reverse. Herman & Dabney almost certainly won a few matches and the titles, but The Quebecers prevailed in the end to become the new GOAT team in league history. The Bohemians were done as active competitors, though they would almost certainly show up at the next year's Slamboree On The Hills Hall of Fame induction ceremony (unless they had already been inducted in the '93 ceremony, which is a distinct possibility). 

Jacques & Pierre would eventually split up and have an epic feud over the North American Championship with Pierre becoming a huge babyface. Pierre won the feud, and it's even possible Pierre eventually won the Big One (can't remember for sure). Either way, Pierre would leave for a while before coming back as Jean Pierre Lafitte in the dying days of this promotion.

Ice Train- Junkyard Dog's figure. Jackson Smith's protege. 330ish pounds. From Indianapolis, IN. Big Splash was his finisher. May have also used the Bearhug and/or Full Nelson. He was in line to become the babyface Next Big Thing. Ended up having a big feud with Jackson Smith after the former champ turned heel on him. Almost certainly picked up his share of North American & TV Championships, plus probably a short-lived tag title reign with J. Smith, but I don't recall him ever winning the Big One. Meaning he was ultimately a failed Next Big Thing. Disappearing from WCW tv as quickly as he came likely did him no favors.

Erik Watts- Davey Boy Smith's figure. Did the 1987 Barry Windham "up and coming babyface" thing. From Louisville, KY or Bixby, OK depending on the month. 6-5, 269 pounds* because everybody's weight was exaggerated in this "bigger is better" league. Had a long feud with the Louisville Lip and his midcard charges after refusing The Lip's offer to manage him. That took up the bulk of Watts' '93. Watts was a perennial secondary title holder/contender. 1993 Rookie of the Year as well ....despite the fact that Finneus J. Blount, The Patriot, and Helsinki won World Titles while debuting after Watts. D'oh! His STF was the league equivalent to Bret's Sharpshooter. Now there was no way to execute a proper STF (or many of these moves) with these rather stiff rubber figures. You had to use your imagination. But even those half-hearted STF's are almost certainly what caused the Davey Boy Smith figure's arm to fall off a few years later. Anyway, Watts is on the cusp of his biggest push to date at Survivor Series. I distinctly remember him getting a big rub at Survivor Series, and being the talk of the promotion in its immediate aftermath. Though I sadly forget the details. I'll cover that show, and Watts' potential role in it a little later.... 

*Heights/Weights are estimates but, again, I'd put money on it that I'm within 2 inches and 10 pounds every single time.

Chesapeake John- Hillbilly Jim or Outback Jack's figure. About 6'0-242 pounds. From Chesapeake, VA. Often teamed with Lumberjack Jess as an environmentalist tag team because nothing says "environmentalist" like chopping down a bunch of trees    His finisher was a weird upside down Thesz Press. Picture a Vader Bomb to a standing opponent.

I put off writing about Chesapeake John yesterday because this one is a doozy. Probably the most Bakeriffic character to date. The Chesapeake John character came from a batshit insane (but endearing!) video I watched in a middle school science class where this geek playing the role of "Chesapeake John" sang goofy songs about saving the Chesapeake Bay. I will share the real Chesapeake John's magnum opus. Warning: I've had this chorus stuck in my head for 27 years. 



Oh, but it gets better. Chesapeake John's first feud was with.....

THE MASKED POLLUTER~! 

Brief Captain Planet Interlude

Captain Planet was very much the Full House of cartoons in that I wasn't a big fan, but it came on surrounded by shows I did like (Conan The Adventurer and later Exosquad in Captain Planet's case. Exosquad is a strong GOAT cartoon contender, while Conan is a likely Top 5er), so I'd often end up watching it out of laziness. The whole Chespeake John/Masked Polluter feud was very Captain Planet-inspired.

Back To Chesapeake John vs. THE MASKED POLLUTER~!

So....The Masked Polluter. Yep. That was a thing. Now even 1993 me was under no misapprehension that The Masked Polluter character was a stroke of genius. Even then I embraced the silliness of it. Chesapeake John's introductory vignettes (you better believe I had them!) saw him cleaning his beloved Chesapeake Bay while lecturing people about not littering and what not. Then, on the other side of the bay, THE MASKED POLLUTER would strike with some looting and polluting. Chesapeake John would give chase, but that dastardly masked villain would always escape his clutches. It was honestly intended to be goofy and ridiculous. Just a little filler feud I could have some fun with.

By the way, I always pictured The Masked Polluter wearing a Mr. Yuk mask. About a year ago I was SHOCKED AND APPALLED to discover my younger coworkers had no knowledge of Mr. Yuk. How can this be?!? How did these people make it this far in life without knowing which products were poisonous?!? Mind blown! And now I must ask you, denizens of PW, art thou familiar with Mr. Yuk? If not, this is Mr. Yuk....

So Chesapeake John's first match was scheduled to be against his nemesis, The Masked Polluter. This was strictly (low) midcard stuff. John was going to win and then move on to his first 'real' feud where he would likely job and quickly be forgotten.....

But something unexpected happened during this throwaway match. I had a brainstorm to turn the hitherto bumbling low card babyface Mark "The Shark" Henderson into an evil mastermind behind the rise of Finneus J. Blount and a bunch of other things. It was a total spur of the moment thing that paid off in spades. I made it all up on the fly, including the whole Bill Clinton storyline. So John (probably) won the match and (definitely) unmasked The Masked Polluter to reveal Mark "The Shark" Henderson! More shock!

John was basically just a wildly popular JTTS who happened to have a powerful friend in Lumberjack Jess. He was very much the Doofus to Lumberjack Jess' Launchpad McQuack. They certainly won a tag title or two, and John took approximately 100% of the falls in their defeats, while Jess was likely responsible for 100% of their victories. 
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*I wrote way too much tonight and now I'm burned out. So the big Survivor Series show will have to wait to tomorrow.
Then I'll probably spend another 3 days writing about my loads and loads and characters, and another day writing about discovering my cousin had become a wrestling fan, before wrapping it up by chronicling its mid-1995 demise.

Survivor Series 1993 (fictional version)

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
On Survivor Series

Many times I have mentioned my love of Survivor Series growing up. I saw the 87-89 installments either live, or on tape in their immediate aftermath. While the 1990 version with Taker's debut and the Ultimate Survival Match was a show I watched a whole lot on tape in the weeks and months after it initially aired.

But the concept peaked for me from 93 to 95. The 1993 version was one of only 2 pay per views I watched during a four and a half year PPV drought. 1994 had a bunch of classic Survivor Series bouts and the awesome Mr. Backlund victory over Bret with an assist from Owen. I attended the 1995 show, and it is one of the direct reasons I am here on PW writing about wrestling some 25 years later. Top 15 PPV of all time for me.

Everything about Survivor Series just seemed so big and important to young me. While I wouldn't have been able to put most of this into words at the time, I loved how you'd get interactions you'd never get at any other time of the year, save perhaps the Royal Rumble. That goes for both teams and their opponents. Loved how they threw all these different characters and storylines into one supersized tag match. Also loved the team names they'd come up with. Winning a Survivor Series match was a huge deal to kiddie me. 

Given my love of the concept, it should come as no surprise that I devoted a lot of time and energy into crafting the perfect Survivor Series cards for my own leagues. Hell, this continued up to just a few short years ago when I did my Rebooking The New Generation fanfic project. 

Survivor Series 1993: All Americans vs. Anti Americans

This is one of those events, like the Ice Skating Ditch night, that I can recall some parts in great detail. Yet I paradoxically blank on the most important things. I can specifically date this one to within a few days. Because, for better or worse, I distinctly remember coming up with show ideas at a f'n funeral. OK, so "post-funeral wake" would be more accurate. But still! 

This particular person died on December 19, 1993. The funeral would have been a few days before Christmas. Probably the 23rd. And there I was slipping away to the bathroom to think about my fake wrestling league. 

This also "proves" what I had long suspected-  my shows tended to take place about a month after their real life equivalents.

So! The big show with TMI about booking in the bathroom after a funeral? Well, I don't remember all the details of the Big Match. BUT I do remember one big thing. And will try piecing the rest together as best I can.....

It was definitely All Americans vs. Anti Americans. And the Anti-American squad definitely would have included Finneus J. Blount, The Helsinki Hammer/Hellraiser, and both Quebecers. Mark "The Shark" Henderson was probably on this squad as well. But I'm iffy on the babyface team. Let's work this out as best I can....

The Patriot & Lumberjack Jess are locks. Then things get fishy. Chesapeake John seems likely. I also thought my Tatanka Guy (I'll cover him more in depth later) would have been in this. But a bit of research rules him out. I can definitively prove he would not debut for another month or two. So the two remaining spots seem reserved for either The Bohemians or Jackson Smith & Ice Train, since Smith & Train were teaming at the time in a mentor/protege relationship. 

BUT another thing I distinctly recall about this show (beyond booking it in a restaurant bathroom after a funeral) is Erik Watts getting a huge push. Like he was the talk of the wrestling world coming out of this Survivor Series. It was his Superstar Moment. So it makes sense that he would be in the main event since I'm not likely to recall a fictional midcard match over 26 years later. And I definitely would have borrowed some pre-match storytelling from my beloved WWF. SO! This is what I've got....

Anti-Americans: Helsinki Hammer(c)/Finneus J. Blount/both Quebecers/Mark "The Shark" Henderson w/ The Louisville Lip & Johnny Polo Guy*
vs. 
All Americans: The Patriot (c)/Lumberjack Jess/Chesapeake John/either The Bohemians or Jackson Smith & Ice Train/Erik Watts
*Forgot to mention Polo (Guy) earlier, but he was definitely in this league managing The Quebecers. The only thing I don't remember is whether I called him Johnny Polo or something more Bakeriffic like Thurston Q. Pennyfeather III.

That's 8 potential wrestlers on the babyface side. Let's scrap The Bohemians. I just have a gut feeling their last big storyline with The Quebecers had finished up by this point. Then, because I was heavily aping WWF at the time, somebody gets taken out of the match with injury a la 1993 Tatanka. Initial feeling was for it to be Chesapeake John since he's the weak link of this team. BUT the Jackson Smith/Ice Train feud was just about to heat up. So let's have Jackson Smith taken out. And missing this match while Train goes on to have a strong showing makes him jealous. It's just like Owen Hart! But different. And then Watts takes Jackson Smith's spot as a last minute replacement? OR we could have Watts already in the match given his long history with The Louisville Lip. This way newbie Ice Train takes veteran mentor Jackson Smith's spot after being told he "wasn't ready" by Jackson. Yeah! That sounds likely. The protege replacing the mentor. Ooh! Good storytelling. Very 1993 me. SO!

Anti-Americans: Helsinki Hammer(c)/Finneus J. Blount/Jacques/Pierre/Mark "The Shark" Henderson w/Louisville Lip & Johnny Polo
vs.
All Americans: Patriot(c)/Lumberjack Jess/Chesapeake John/Erik Watts/Jackson Smith/Ice Train

Like I said, my main memory from the actual show was Erik Watts coming out of it as the talk of the wrestling world. That likely means one of two things....

1. Watts shocks the world by winning to become The (ultimately failed) Next Big Thing
Or.....
2. Watts turns heel. Costs his team the match.
*sigh* You know what? There actually is an Option 3.....
3. Watts plays no role in this match after all. Instead he wins a midcard Survivor Series Match. But then goes on to win The Ultimate Survivor Match.....
4. Possibly after turning heel on an All American?

:lol:  Good grief! This is turning into the worst post of all time. And it's about to get even worse!

*sigh* Because maybe The Bohemians were in the main event after all? Meaning Smith & Train did their Bret/Owen angle in the midcard? IT'S POSSIBLE!

I give up.

Survivor Series 1993: What Definitely Happened

1. I came up with ideas for this show in a restaurant bathroom following a funeral.
2. There was a big All Americans vs. Anti Americans* match.
*NOT Foreign Fanatics since Blount & Henderson were technically Americans. This little name tweak is something I do remember.
3. Erik Watts did Something Big

Survivor Series 1993: What Probably Happened

1. Ice Train and Jackson Smith begin their sort of reverse Bret/Owen angle.

Survivor Series 1993: What Might Have Happened

1. There was an Ultimate Survival Match after the big All Americans vs. Anti Americans clash.
2. Erik Watts won a big match.
3. Erik Watts turned heel*.

*Watts definitely did turn heel at some point. I'm 100% sure about this. It was a Big Deal that was supposed to boost him from his longtime King of the Midcard status to a full-fledged main event superstar. But I'm 99% sure I never went all the way with it. Meaning Watts never won The Big One. Chances are I came up with a new pet top heel character right around the time Watts was challenging The Patriot or whoever. 
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So that was the worst post in the history of this project. I just spent an hour writing a whole lot of words to say very little. And now I'm burned out. 

Next Time: I get back to covering the colossal cast of characters. I'm going to try knocking that out in 3 posts. Then a story about my cousin discovering wrestling and me discovering he was a fan. And finally The Demise of Mid '95.