UT bringing up Austin Steele in the Superstars thread triggered a bunch of half forgotten memories which in turn sent me down another 90s indie rabbit hole...
Austin Steele's home promotion was the succinctly named
Professional
Wrestling
Federation. The PWF was a 90s indie based in North Carolina which got some Apter Mag coverage.
A highlight of any Apter Mag was the Top 10 rankings towards the back of the magazine. It was a good way to learn about new wrestlers and keep up with promotions I was unable to watch. Gave me a little primer on which wrestlers were hot. The usual layout was the 5 or 6 most important promotions in the US along with the top feds in Japan and Mexico received more detailed rankings with bold font and height/weight/hometown. Then they'd cram in some of the more notable indies with just a straight 1-10. PWF was one of those indies regularly featured. To mid 90s me that meant they were one of the more important indies. I got a few wrestlers for my growing number of wrestling figure leagues from those PWF rankings.
PWF wrestlers I remembered off the top of my head include George South, Italian Stallion, Terry Austin, Mad Maxine, and the immortal Austin Steele. All of these folks minus Maxine (we had no female figures) were used in our wrestling figure leagues. A bit of research reveals Greg Hart (no relation) and Tyrone Knox also worked for PWF. They too were used in our leagues. I just didn't remember them being PWF guys.
Through the aforementioned research I also learned Men on a Mission actually started their careers in PWF (I always thought they started in Memphis). Henry Godwinn and R-Truth wrestled for them as well when they were starting out. Future ECW star and cult hero bump freak Chris Hamrick appeared on PWF shows too. As did Matt & Jeff Hardy. PWF actually played a role in OMEGA becoming a thing, but that's a story in and of itself. Maybe I'll tell it some other time. Already legendary veterans Ron Garvin & the Rock & Roll Express also worked the occasional PWF show.
Judging by the handful of PWF clips I watched over the past few days it seems their intent was to attract old Crockett fans and their children. Smart move since that's pretty much the ideal wrestling fanbase.
PWF was somewhere between an indie and an actual territory. On their best years (93 & 96) they averaged running more one a show per week. That was a rarity for an indie at the time, and still is as far as I know. They ran the Carolinas and Virginias, which, along with Tennessee & Kentucky, was still THE hotbed of alternative wrestling. The Great Northeasterly Shift actually started during PWF's run. That's low key one of the biggest and most important changes in wrestling over the past 30 years. And nobody ever talks about it! Alas, that too is a long story for another day. Records may be sketchy, but as best I can tell it looks like PWF ran from 92-97. They relied on a skeleton crew with only about a dozen wrestlers on most shows. Guys often pulled double duty under masks. Pretty sure most PWF wrestlers other than the occasional big name special guest star were South and/or Stallion trainees.
Speaking of George South & Italian Stallion, they were the founding fathers and co-owners of PWF. Both men were regularly used as tv jobbers for NWA/Crockett in the 80s. The sort of blokes who still every match, but would at least get in a little offense before going down in defeat. So this would be like if Iron Mike Sharpe and Jim Powers started an indie promotion in New York. Which is fine. But then imagine Sharpe & Powers having a forever feud over their promotion's top title. That would have been an instant turnoff to me in an even more extreme way then seeing Koko B. Ware as USWA Champion was for
Kilgore . "lol your champions are wimps!" How could I take this promotion seriously after seeing their top two stars lose on tv week after week for years? Well, PWF was kind of like that. Stallion & South, who couldn't buy a win on NWA tv, feuded over the PWF Championship for the bulk of its existence. But it was still fun to read about in the Apter Mags.
Late in the year the Apter Mags would publish fan predictions for the coming year. Most of these submissions were snarky, tongue in cheek entries that predicted the rise of internet smark culture. I remember a prediction one year being something like "George South & Italian Stallion will trade the PWF Championship back and forth 100 more times. Wrestling fans will continue not to care." Ouch. Sick burn.
South is probably most famous today for being Ric Flair's favorite jobber. Flair once rewarded South for his good work by going over 10 minutes with him in a competitive match on tv. Once upon a time this was often brought up as another example of why Flair is the GOAT. "He made the fans believe a total ham and egger was going to beat the NWA Champ!" But, again, this would have been a major turnoff to kiddie me. Hulk Hogan is out there kicking out of finishers that send lesser men to the hospital and slamming giants. Then you got this jabroni champion down in the bush leagues who struggles to beat a wimp! WWF is obviously the superior product because they have the clearly superior champion.
🤯 may also remember South, now an old man, appearing on NWA Powerrr's version of Tough Enough last year.
Stallion is an even more interesting character. For starters, his real name is the very un-Italian Gary Sabaugh. His claim to fame for me will always be "World's Spaghetti Eating Champion." No idea if it's true or not (it probably isn't), but the Apter Mags mentioned this practically every time they ever wrote about the Stallion. Like his official name might as well have been "Italian Stallion: World's Spaghetti Eating Champion."
His claim to fame for normal people will probably be as the guy who first introduced the Hardys to WWF officials....and took most of their pay as a "finder's fee" until the Hardys got wise to Stallion's machinations. Stallion actually has a pretty good size, and a not terrible look, but is god awful on the mic. Just stumbling over his words like you wouldn't believe. And he calls his fans "Little Ponies!" Also awful! "Little Ponies" can't hold a candle to the likes of Hulkamaniacs, Little Stingers, Little Warriors, Jerichoholics, etc.
Stallion has a manager called....wait for it....SUPER MARIO! He's terrible too! Mario is a short, yet extremely rotund gentleman doing a half-hearted Mario gimmick. Yes, Super Mario: the video game character. He's as wide as he is tall and cuts promos for Stallion, but speaks so softly I cannot make out what he's saying. Dude. You had one job!
"Nature Boy" Austin Steele was a basement favorite. OK. Not at first. But once we found out he was another "Nature Boy" you better believe a push was imminent. I first discovered this when a PWI writer took a dig at Buddy Landel. Something like "He'll never be Ric Flair, but at least he can sleep at night knowing he is a better 'Nature Boy' than Austin Steele." Brutal. Come to think of it that was more of a dig at Austin Steele. Imagine being a poor man's Buddy Landel... We were fans of his tag team with Terry Austin literally just because they shared the name “Austin.” The Austins...Austin Connection...Terry Austin Steele! Ya gotta love it.
I actually went on an earlier mini-Steele binge a few years back, but was unable to find writeups in the Match Review thread. Meaning it must have been on the old PW. Or maybe I just never bothered to write it up? idk.
Mad Maxine was a minor Apter Mag darling when I first started reading them in 95-96. Then she disappeared off the face of the earth. OK. Bear with me because this gets a little confusing. There were actually two Mad Maxine's. The first Mad Maxine had cups of coffee in mid 80s WWF & UWF. The Mad Maxine we're discussing today competed only in mid 90s PWF. I did some digging and rumor has it she was Italian Stallion's girlfriend who disappeared from the wrestling business when they broke up.
PWF Maxine received a good amount of Apter Mag coverage. She was one of three runner ups for the 1995 Rookie of the Year. She was one of the first women to be ranked in the PWI 500, and THE first to be ranked multiple times. She was also the first woman I ever heard of beating men, and winning male championships. Before Chyna, there was Mad Maxine holding the PWF Junior Heavyweight Championship for nearly two years.
*If there's any interest, or I just happen to be in the mood, I'll be back later in the week to review a (surprisingly not bad!) Stallion vs. Steele cage match, elaborate on the whole Hardys/PWF/OMEGA connection, and drop any other PWF stories I may remember or discover.
I leave you with 3 trailers for a documentary which may or may not have ever been made chronicling the history of PWF. No idea who the cool suplex guy is. Guessing one of their many Russian Assassins? But don't think that's the norm for PWF. It isn't. PWF is VERY old school. Cool Suplex Guy is an anomaly. Enjoy!
{Spoiler}
