Siki was huge between Detroit Toronto back in the 60s/70s. But black headliners were still rare although there were a few(Bobo Brazil, Ernie Ladd among others). Siki trained Christian and Edge.
i've been watching a lot of old wrestling lately. my list on underrated wrestlers. -sgt slaughter- was always able to bring out the best in whoever he worked with. carried lots of matches. as someone who was born in 1982 I don't remember him as a wrestler except for the tail end of his career so going back and watching him in his prime he was amazing -ricky steamboat and rick rude- I grouped these two together because they might not be that underrated but they are just two guys who had a unique skill set back then. they were able to have great matches against heavyweights or cruiser weights, main eventers or mid card talent. any wrestler you wanted a great match with just insert one of these two. they had moves that worked with whatever style wrestler you wanted them to go against. the fact that almost any wrestling dvd i own that contains matches from 1983-1995 on it features at least 1 match with one of these guys says a lot about their talent. again I remember both of them as wrestlers but it was closer to the end of their in ring careers -raven- he was mentioned earlier. I think he's underrated because most people think he was just a gimmick match guy. raven could really go. -jake "the snake" roberts- not a great technical guy but he was always able to tell a great story in his matches not two guys I just want to say something about -ric flair- not underrated at all but if you didn't start watching wrestling until 1998 or so you forget just how great he was -jerry lawler- not a very technical guy. I'm just mentioning him because if you didn't know who he was before 1994 you would think he was a glorified jobber who spends most of his time as an announcer with a sick mind
i mentioned earlier jerry the king lawlers dvd lacking in matches , well quality matches, f you don't own it here are the matches included and some info by me that I bolded Empty Arena Match-decent brawl Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk Memphis Wrestling • April 25, 1981 Jerry Lawler vs. Andy Kaufman-this had to be here but its not a true match Memphis Wrestling • April 5, 1982 No Disqualification, Loser Leaves Town Match for the Southern Heavyweight Championship-good brawl. great feud between these two Jerry Lawler vs. “Superstar” Bill Dundee Memphis Wrestling • June 6, 1983 Jerry Lawler vs. Eddie Gilbert-ok but short match Pro-Wrestling USA • October 20, 1984 Jerry Lawler vs. Curt Hennig-silly that this is not the match where jerry wins the title from curt. why is that missing? AWA Championship Wrestling • March 12, 1988 AWA & WCCW Championship Unification Match-again silly this isn't the famous match where jerry wins the title Jerry Lawler vs. Kerry Von Erich World Class Championship Wrestling • September 24, 1988 Jerry Lawler vs. Jim Powers-short squash match RAW • April 5, 1993 Jerry Lawler vs. Owen Hart-good match. jerry was a huge fan of owen and the hart family Wrestling Challenge • July 25, 1993 Jerry Lawler vs. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper-terrible match as these 2 had no chemistry at all in the ring King of the Ring • June 19, 1994 Casket Match-good match Jerry Lawler vs. The Undertaker White Plains, NY • September 28, 1994 “Kiss My Foot Match”-silly match but this feud made jerry in the wwe but also helped cement him as somewhat of a fool in wwe Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart King of the Ring • June 25, 1995 Jerry Lawler vs. Al Jackson-short match with jerry doing the commentary as well Superstars • March 23, 1996 Jerry Lawler vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts- short match but fun SummerSlam • August 18, 1996 Jerry Lawer & Rob Van Dam vs. The Headbangers-this is here due to jerry's involvement with rva and the ecw thing at the time Shotgun Saturday Night • June 14, 1997 Jerry Lawler vs. Tommy Dreamer-this is actually really good. ECW Hardcore Heaven • August 17, 1997 Jerry Lawler & Brian Christopher vs. Flash Funk & Scott Taylor-just a match to show off jerry and his son. not long after this brian and scott would be a tag team Shotgun Saturday Night • October 14, 1997 Jerry Lawler vs. Tazz-shame this isn't really a match SummerSlam • August 27, 2000 Legends Match-great match. these 2 still had it after all these years Jerry Lawler vs. Ric Flair RAW • November 29, 2004 TLC Match for the WWE Championship-this was jerry's only match ever for the wwe title. that's why its here. pretty good though The Miz vs. Jerry Lawler RAW • November 29, 2010 Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole-only here because its jerry's only match at a wrestlemania but its silly and really pointless Special Guest Referee: Stone Cold Steve Austin WrestleMania XXVII • April 3, 2011 so there is it. the blu ray I believe has 2 more matches. overall though not enough pre wwe matches to show how great he was and no idea why probably the 2 biggest pre wwe matches jerry had are missing in favor of other matches from those 2 feuds. rather have the matches where jerry wins the belts
figured i'd do this for jake roberts too with his dvd matches w/Ricky Steamboat vs. Jim Nelson & Mike Miller, Mid-Atlantic - 09/09/81-short match but historical as you get to see him tag with steamboat. they would have a great feud in a few years vs. Ronnie Garvin, World Television Championship Match, Georgia Championship - 12/03/83-great match. vs. Leaping Lanny Poffo, MSG - 16/03/86-really a squash match sorta. vs. Rickey Steamboat, Snake Pit Match, The Big Event - 28/08/86-great match. these 2 had a great feud. theres a few other matches from this feud on other wwe dvds vs. Honky Tonk Man, Wrestlemania III - 29/03/87-good match. alice cooper is with jake vs. Ravishing Rick Rude, Rude Awakening vs. DDT Match, MSG - 24/10/88-amazing match. these 2 had a great feud as well and rude always was a top worker vs. Earthquake, Superstars - 27/04/91-not even really a match. kinda silly to put this on here. After a match, Jake "The Snake" Roberts attacks Randy "Macho Man" Savage with a cobra - Superstars 23/11/91-squash match and then jake attacks savage. don't understand why they left off a match with macho man though. silly to show this but not show and matches from the feud vs. Sting, Coal Miner's Glove Match, Halloween Havoc - 25/10/92-great match. think this is the only time they ever wrestled. the issue i have with this match though was there was a wheel that decided the gimmick and the coal miners glove was the worst option on the wheel. they had a great match though vs. Dirty White Boy, Smoky Mountain Heavyweight Championship, Smoky Mountain Wrestling - 07/05/94-pretty good. was shocked they got smoky mountain footage vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, King of the Ring Final - 23/06/96-great match. the birth of stone cold. vs. Jerry "The King" Lawler, SummerSlam - 18/08/96-great to see these 2 go at it but not anything special Run-in during Tommy Dreamer vs. Jerry "The King" Lawler - Hardcore Heaven 8/17/97 -jake just shows up in the match and causes a commotion w/Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible & Jack Victory, November 2 Remember - 01/11/98-jake does very little in this match. nice to see him in ecw though. its entertaining though so there it is. unlike jerry lawler there are a lot of jake matches on other dvd's that are not on here though. would have like a match with macho man though. also would have like some more pre wwe matches. the wrestlemania vi match again ted dibiase should have been on here. no matches from the rick martel feud. odd. nothing from the undertaker feud either
Fox News had a lengthy, extensive interview with Hulk Hogan last Sunday about his life and career. Hulk was shilling his new surf shop but opened up about everything that has gone down for him, including his son's imprisonment and the Gawker trial. He said that after all his surgeries, he's shrunk from being 6'8" in his prime to just a tick over 6'4".
The Rick Rude feud was great. I remember on regular WWF programming all the stuff that led to their big matches when Rude would pick a girl out out the crowd to kiss and it was actually Jake's wife Cheryl and she slapped Rude then another week Rude wore tights with Cheryl's face on them and Jake came out to the ring and striped them off leaving him naked.
yeah rude had some great feuds with a few people. same with jake. there is another match in the jake/steamboat feud on the steamboat dvd set and another match on the best of Saturday night main event dvd set. there is a match from the jake/rick martel feud on the new unreleased vol 3 dvd set. of course pretty much any ppv match Roberts was in is on a dvd set. theres a match from the jake/macho man feud on one of the macho man dvd sets and another earlier encounter between these 2 on the Saturday night main event dvd set.
He did flex and pose a bit. The most shocking thing that was shown were all the crutches he's kept as a memento for his various surgeries over the years. He has something like 60 sets of crutches. Hulk does seem to be in a happy place right now. He was asked if he would go back to the WWE if invited by them, after they unceremoniously fired him when the video came out. He still misses the wrestling world on some level.
Hogan is part of the reason wcw went under and helped to squash a lot of great talent. he needs to stay away from wrestling now
It was so dumb back then with 3 hour Nitro shows and another 2 hour Thursday show how all the best wrestlers would be in the first hour, then endless nWo stuff and hogan to end the show, if I'm remembering correctly.
well Hogan also was helping to get his friends big huge contracts that were guaranteed. at one point wcw had dozens of wrestlers getting paid weekly who weren't appearing on tv shows. Hogan helped keep jake the snake from having a feud with him. he didn't want any of the wcw cruiserweights getting pushed to main event status and because of that a lot of them started to leave, Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, etc.
sorta asked a similar question earlier in this thread. who are your favorite wrestlers from each decade and rivalries that you feel defined those wrestlers or that decade?
On Los Angeles local TV around 1988-89, we had a WWF show on early Sunday afternoons. It was mostly star wrestlers wrestling the no name guys. Honestly, almost all of those star wrestlers were great: Honky Tonk Man, Mr. Perfect, Brother Love, Rick Rude, The Barber, Bushwhackers, British Bulldogs, the Hart Foundation, Jesse Ventura... I don't remember seeing Hulk, Macho Man, or Andre too much if at all, as WWF probably saved those guys for the bigger broadcasts. Earthquake and the Undertaker came a little bit later, and seemed to be a bit of a downturn in personality. I started watching again about ten years later and took to Booker T and his wife. They were classy. The Rock was also fun to watch. I'm back to watching Raw again, but haven't found a favorite wrestler. I kinda like Enzo and his willingness to make deals with Curt Angle to protect his belt. Goldust is a great wrestler, but it's painful to watch him lose every match.
great thoughts. i'll make a post later to answer the questions i asked. booker t was imo a guy no one knew how much he'd be missed or how much he was worth until he retired
to answer my own questions. I can not go back before the 70's. I'm sure maybe someone here can. i'm not old enough and there isn't enough footage for me to watch. this isn't exactly a list of my favorite wrestlers but wrestlers I felt performed great during these decades. just because I list someone as being great in the 70's, 80's, etc doesn't mean I think that at the end of that decade they stopped being great. these are not ranked 70's 1 Bruno sammartino 2 Harley race 3 dusty rhodes 4 superstar billy graham rivalries of the 70's -superstar vs dusty -Bruno vs superstar 80's 1 ric flair 2 ricky steamboat 3 jake roberts 4 randy savage 5 rick rude rivalries of the 80's -flair vs steamboat -Hogan vs andre -Hogan vs roddy piper -Roberts vs steamboat -savage vs steamboat -Roberts vs rick rude yes I think steamboat was that great in rivalries 90's 1 shawn michaels 2 sting 3 undertaker 4 bret hart 5 rob van dame rivalries of the 90's -flair vs sting -hart vs michaels -undertaker vs mankind -rvd vs jerry lynn 00's 1 HHH 2 aj styles 3 samoa joe 4 Christopher daniels 5 cm punk 6 bryan danielson feuds of the 00's -styles vs joe vs daniels in any combination of these 3 -Danielson vs kenta kobayashi -hhh vs kurt angle cm punk vs joe
I've seen the King Cobra incident on YouTube. Talk about things that could never happen in today's world! Wow! I wonder how Jake actually got a King Cobra into the venue, as well as talked Macho Man into getting bit by it? I know it was devenomized, but I've read where Macho Man got sick from it afterwards. That said, I can't imagine a more heel moment than that one! Had women screaming, children crying, etc.
I watched lots of wrestling in the late 90s in the attitude era. Favorites: -DX (HBK, HHH, X-Pac), The Rock, Mankind, Scott Steiner, Jericho, Raven Rivalries and great matches: -Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramone (1994 Wrestlemania Ladder Match) -Mic Foley vs The Undertaker (1998 Hell in a Cell Match - Undertaker threw Mankind off the top of the cage onto the Spanish announcers table) -Mic Foley vs The Rock (1999 Royal Rumble "I quit match") -Stone Cold vs The Rock -Stone Cold vs Mic Foley Live: -the best sporting event I've been to was a pay-per view 1998 before the Royal Rumble. Main event was Austin vs Undertaker in Buried Alive match and Mankind vs The Rock that went all over the arena with Vince and Shane involved.
jake said he showed macho several times it had no venom by getting bit himself and macho then ok'd it. jake said though for some reason the snake bit macho man harder and latched onto macho man longer than it was suppose to and caused it to be worse than planned
great match. remember when foley got slammed through the top of the cell too? that was actually not suppose to happen