Hey Scott,
Back in the day, where there ever any issues with the Pro Wrestling and sports commissions concerning the fact that it held itself out to be real. The same issues concerning fixing any other sport would've applied (Betting on wrestling and so forth) and it seems everyone involved would've been in huge a legal mess if wrestling didn't come out of the closet by in the 50s.
No, because the idea that wrestling was thought of as "real" until the WWF came along is a fallacy put out by the WWF itself. There's lot of old news stories and clippings to be had from as far back as the turn of the century that show everyone was hip to the game from a very early stage and wrestling was thought of as mostly a sideshow from the Strangler Lewis era onwards. Far as I know, the only state that seriously enforced any kind of commission was Oregon, which is why WWF didn't run there for decades. Most of the other "doctors" were seemingly of the George Zahorian variety, basically bankrolled by the promoters themselves. They might have been kayfabing the fans, but I bet they were pretty open to the government in order to avoid regulation.
Was Flair just pulling our chain is his book when he talked about his two matches with Jack Veneno? He made it seem like a legit international incident might have happened.
ReplyDeleteNot so much an international incident as the fans there being a little "too" into the action. Anyone who's worked in Puerto Rico has horror stories about the fans... we throw trash, they throw bags of piss and shit and rocks.
ReplyDeleteSee: Soccer fans, and the shit Team USA sometimes has to deal with during WC Qualifying.
And, from the various shoots I've seen/read... those state commissions were happy as long as they got their cut of the action. It's one of the bigger factors behind Vince's outright admission during the 80's... saved/made him quite a few more dollars.
ReplyDeleteOther than children and the handicapped no one has ever believed that wrestling was real.
ReplyDeleteHere I go showing my ancientness again, but there was an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies that pretty much exposed professional wrestling as a complete and unquestionable work. And this was back in the Sixties, and I'm sure there are even earlier examples.
ReplyDeleteWrestling was sanctioned (i.e, taxed) as a sport in some states. New Jersey springs to mind, because they brought the Governor out during SummerSlam 1997 to thank her for getting it changed to entertainment.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jesse Baker...
ReplyDeletehttp://smugnation.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/wrestling-is-real.jpg
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure the word "handicapped" would apply to one Homer Simpson.
ReplyDeleteAwesome tidbit.
ReplyDeleteDidnt the golden triangle guys basically admit it was all a work?
ReplyDeleteI mean, you don't really need much evidence FROM people, you can just watch it yourself. I mean, I remember having friends in grade 5 say, "Umm, if Stone Cold punched you in the head ten times, wouldn't you be dead?"
ReplyDeleteAncient, schmancient, you're ok by me Grandpa.
ReplyDeletewhere there ever any issues with the Pro Wrestling and sports
ReplyDeletecommissions concerning the fact that it held itself out to be real.
I'm betting everything was ok as long as everyone got their cut. Speaking of which, does anyone know of any book or doc on the NWA? I'm really interested in how business was operated and what not since they carried on like the mob and shit.
or at least if someone did a piledriver on someone.
ReplyDeleteThis one is solid and comprehensive:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/National-Wrestling-Alliance-Monopoly-Strangled/dp/1550227416
No shit. I mean, we can all admit that when were kids we tried out various moves back and forth in the yard with our friends, right? But we were trying armdrags and shit like the figure 4 and Sharpshooter. No way would I try a piledriver, or take one.
ReplyDeleteWe totally did piledrivers. I never tried an armdrag.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, MMA is still illegal in NY. I just don't understand...
ReplyDeleteYes, this book gets an A+++ from me. It does skew more towards the founding/early years, and less of the 80's forward... but it is an OUTSTANDING read.
ReplyDeleteThat's part early-UFC and it's competitiors being a little too "Wild West", and part "Where's our cut?", with Dana likely telling them to go cut themselves instead.
ReplyDeleteIMO.
I specifically remember giving my frIend a figure 4 on my moms bedpost ala Bret Hart. Good times
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in first grade, a ridiculously large classmate of mine actually gave me a shoot body slam. On pavement. Got busted open hardway, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm hardcore, I'm hardcore...
It depends on the state. Maryland was very tough, and some states like Missouri can still show up and screen wrestlers. It's not uncommon for wrestlers to be unable to wrestle in some states due to their licenses expiring. Oddly, my bureaucratic, money-grubbing state no longer regulates wrestling and is generally pretty lax with MMA. Come wrestle in Illinois!
ReplyDeleteGood looking out. Consider it ordered
ReplyDeleteThat's mostly what I'm interested in so this works.
ReplyDeleteHad a kid put another kid out with a sleeper in third grade. Scary stuff.
ReplyDeleteMeekin used to beg hid friends to give him the Bronco buster and the Rikishi stinkface.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid in the 80s, I remember buying a VHS tape entitled 'Villains of the Golden Age of Wrestling', or something with a similar title. During one of the matches, the commentator said something along the lines of 'playing the role of the villain tonight is' so-and-so, or 'cast in the role of the villain'. That was a bit confusing to me as a young mark, but it's proof that kayfabe wasn't as prevalent as revisionist history would lead one to believe.
ReplyDeleteWorst I've seen/done:
ReplyDelete4th grade: Put another kid in a Boston Crab, and cranked on it just enough to convince him I wasn't fooling around. No real damage, but he did have a bit of a backache for a day.
12th grade: Did not see it myself, but heard about one 8th grader powerbombing another one in the locker room during gym class... unlucky victim was KTFO.
Did a piledriver off a ladder into a pool once, but never on dry land.
ReplyDeleteNever seen someone take the powerbomb before.
ReplyDeleteMy go-to move is the million dollar dream. Used to do it to my brother all the time. Now I do it on my nephew. It's a move you can crank up on to hurt them without actually knocking them out.
My brother's and I are all pretty big, strong guys and we used to do power stuff to the smaller guys all the time when we were teenagers until one time we were doing them into snowbanks and my bro slipped on ice and damn near Droz'd me.
ReplyDeleteShit got toned down after that.
Poses another question...when did you realize wrestling was worked? For me it was after watching hogan miss a leg drop by 8 inches on someone and getting a pin.
ReplyDeleteI never could get a sleeper just right, but a friend's sister was pretty good at it.
ReplyDeleteI never tried anything with ladders. I did a dive off a chair and through a closet door one time and that hurt like a bastard so that was the end of that.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite pool moves were suplexes... all but the "exotic" types.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, how has this not been a QOTD: "What, if any, experience do you have in 'Trying this at home'?"
ReplyDeleteBut considering what happened to the one other time I sent in a QOTD... someone else better take this one.
I used to do all the power moves to my little brother onto a couch, just land them softly, because hey, 7 year age differences have to be good for something.
ReplyDeleteI can't see a bronco buster without thinking of X-Pac's multi time torn anus.
ReplyDeleteMoral of that is that I don't watch a lot of bronco busters.
Yep, me and my cousins were in a similar boat.
ReplyDeleteWhich one was yours?
ReplyDeleteSee below; after the incident, my parents decided it was best that I know the truth for my own long-term health. Didn't really affect my enjoyment, though.
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, all those guys who got manhandled by Andre? I can totally relate...
Long ago, I sent in something like this to Caliber:
ReplyDelete"What one aspect about a woman, physical or mental, would be an automatic turn-off?"
And the next day, Caliber/Dougie happened.
My Dad wrestled a bit in his early 20s. He wised me up early, but I still WANTED to believe for a lot of years if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteHey does anyone know if Hollywood really used to make tons of wrestling movies in the old timey days? I just remember in Barton Fink they kept wanting him to make a wrestling picture.
ReplyDeleteNothing to do with money, just typical Albany politics. The state Assembly has passed a MMA bill the last 4 years and the governor has blocked it. Just typical NY political BS. It'll be up for debate again this year.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ufc.com/news/fight-to-legalize-mma-in-2014
Oh, ha.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good idea for a Q though.
We were roughhousers in general and we totally wrecked a bed, a couch, and a few other not cheap pieces of furniture doing suplexes and shit.
Ugh. Ive actually heard him talk about it in shoots. Its kinda amazing how nonchalant he is about a torn anus
ReplyDeleteSeeing Mike Tyson destroy some ham-and-egger with about three punches, and realizing I'd never seen a wrestling match end with a punch.
ReplyDeletei remember 2 kids getting into a fight in 5th grade. The bigger kid managed to get the other kid into position for a DDT and just DROPPED him on his face. Other kid was done fighting after that.
ReplyDeleteYes, of all the things to be chalant about, that would be up there I would thing.
ReplyDeleteSo he Steamboated him? Yikes.
ReplyDeleteMy mom was one of those "you know it's fake, right?" people. She still is. Why she cares about someone watching wrestling, I have no idea.
ReplyDeleteOne time I asked my girlfriend to come give me a hug, then I rock bottomed her onto the bed. Good times were had after that.
ReplyDeleteyup. Outside in winter on the frozen ground.
ReplyDelete"Far as I know, the only state that seriously enforced any kind of commission was Oregon, which is why WWF didn't run there for decades. "
ReplyDeleteTry running a show without a license and see how fast it gets shut down.
Wasn't avoiding Oregon strictly about the drug testing?
ReplyDeleteMy brother was a coward, so I ended up doing my "try it at home" with an Ultimate Warrior wrestling buddy. Mostly high flying stuff like elbows off the backyard fence, or superplexes off the same fence. I did once bodyslam a guy in gym class when I was 14, and it was a roundabout way towards proving wrestling was fake (well, involved both guys working together), because he wasn't cooperating and deadlifting even an 8th grader took way too much effort.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird to me how wrestling is SUCH a turn off for some people.
ReplyDeleteJust don't watch.
I don't recall, but it was early. Dad was always going on about how fake it was.
ReplyDeleteThe Undertaker being impervious to pain despite losing much of the time as Mean Mark...that was a big clue to me. The Papa Shango thing with the Warrior puking was the final straw.
ReplyDeleteExactly, she always had to constantly let us know that it wasn't real. Then the next moment she was asking me to set the vcr to tape "Young and the Restless"
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying they take pro wrestling very seriously and enforce the rules everywhere.
ReplyDeleteAh, ok. Gotcha
ReplyDeleteI was always horrible at recognizing guys with a new gimmick. I didn't know Stone Cold was Stunning Steve until I read a magazine profile he did. I was 18.
ReplyDeleteUndertaker firing a lightning bolt after he returned to the zombie gimmick in 2004. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, because SmackDown was so preposterously campy at that point that nothing was particularly believable, not even for a 12-year old. The heart attack angle with Eddie Guerrero's mother was also absurdly contrived and had me questioning things.
ReplyDeleteIn grade school they would leave the high jump mat out in the gym sometimes and we'd sneak in during recess and give each other doomsday devices off of the stage. That was pretty fun.
ReplyDeleteWord to that. Almost every guy, as a kid or teen, has both punched someone and been punched. And both sides of that equation hurt like a son of a bitch. Punching someone in the head is like a recipe for skinning your knuckles and bruising the hell out of your hand. And getting punched, like one punch, can have you seeing stars, and plus, getting socked in the nose hurts, brings on involuntary tears, etc. Yet Hulk Hogan, this larger then life superhero, punches Randy Savage 10 times on the turnbuckle, and he's more or less okay, and doing flying axhandles a minute later? That's what clued me in as a 10 year old.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother was like this as well. Any time I watched it when she was around she had to point out every "fake" thing possible and I'm just like "I FUCKING GET IT ALREADY."
ReplyDeleteI say "piledriver", but in reality it looked more like a Big Poppa Pump botched gut wrench suplex.
ReplyDeletePut a mask on a guy and fool me all day long. I didn't believe that Savio was Kwang or Neidhart was Who for a really long time.
ReplyDeleteMy friend and I use to tape matches and then play spots back on slow-mo and we could see how punches "missed' or how wrestlers would position themselves to take moves (top rope slashes for example), so we knew it was fake, but we were stumped on how things worked.
ReplyDeleteThe one I caught was Shane Douglas of all people. When he came to the WWF as Dean, I immediately said, "hey that's Shane Douglas"
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way. Without dirt sheets, I wouldn't have known Kane was Isaac Yankem for like 5 years.
ReplyDeleteYep, basically the same here.
ReplyDeleteFunny you mention the Mean Mark/UT connection. When he came to WWF I was familiar with his WCW work and thought "Really? This guy sucks."
ReplyDeleteIt's a miracle we're not all crippled, really. This all is makes me really wish I could train as a wrestler, even at 34...I'd love to learn how to bump and run the ropes and such.
ReplyDeleteyou and devin, such young children.
ReplyDeletehe had been in the WWF for a cup of coffee as Shane Douglas as well.
ReplyDeleteSeeing some of the stars as jobbers (Douglas, "Nick" Foley, Eddie Guerrero, Owen Hart, Edge, Hardys) is quite the fun time.
ReplyDelete1) Yeah, being thrown off a balcony, bleeding from the back of his head...yet the next week being in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg and no head injuries. That was a bit daft.
ReplyDelete2). Considering what happened to Eddie a year later, that angle was definitely not cool.
One thing I didn't know until I started reading rspw was that Owen was the Blue Blazer.
ReplyDeleteI'll never be accused of thinking on my feet. It takes me a minute to grasp things.
ReplyDeleteI never knew he worked in the WWF as Shane
Undertaker and Kane get a lifetime pass from me. I wouldn't be able to accept it from any other character though.
ReplyDeleteMy older brother used to do wrestling moves on me and my younger brother all the time. He was seven years older than me and my parents HATED it, but goddamn it was fun. It was always powerbombs and such on the couch. Looking back, it was dangerous as shit, but meh.
ReplyDeleteHe was easy to miss. He was in the 1991 Royal Rumble and left shortly thereafter.
ReplyDeleteRandom question: Is there a site that has a list of every title match that took place?
ReplyDeleteInternet.
ReplyDeleteEver? House shows too?
ReplyDeletechanges or when the title was on the line?
ReplyDeleteJust PPV and TV is fine but house shows would be cool too.
ReplyDeleteOn the line. I can find title changes easily enough.
ReplyDeletehttp://prowrestling.wikia.com/wiki/WWE_World_Heavyweight_Championship/Title_matches
ReplyDeleteJust wwe thou. Flair4dagold once posted a link with every title match but I can't find it
My grandmother watched Grand Prix Wrestling on local TV in the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, etc.). The Cuban Assassin, Leo Burke, Hercules Ayala-Cortez, The Great Malumba, "No Class" Bobby Bass.....I distinctly remember these guys when I was a kid, before I ever tuned in to a WWF show. She would get into it, and she hated the heels. I remember one time that Bulldog Bob Brown attacked Leo Burke on camera with a what looked like a soldering iron, and my grandmother shouted at the TV that somebody needed to call the cops.
ReplyDeleteIt was real to her, dammit.
You're a god send. I take back every bad thing I've posted about you. I will take back every future bad thing I will post about you if you can find Flair's link.
ReplyDeleteMy dad used to do janitorial work at the auditorium where Crockett ran shows. He always kayfabed us though. I once asked if the blood was real and he said they used blood capsules and he would have to pick them up all over the floor. Why the hell he would lie about this I still don't know.
ReplyDeleteHa. I'll look. I had it bookmarked on my old tablet. It had all time highest winning percentages, tv wining percentages, pin fall %s, etc. It was like porn
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part of the whole thing is that they're afraid that kids will start beating each other up if they see MMA. News flash, idiots: It's on PPV and Fox and Spike and YouTube and all over so kids have seen it. And yet NY allows wrestling, which regularly kills people in some way or another.
ReplyDeleteFuck this company... sorry, force of habit... Fuck this state.
Just WWE, or every promotion ever?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.profightdb.com/records.html
ReplyDeleteOddly it doesn't have title matches but has everything else you could want.
The only thing I need is title matches on TV. You think it wouldn't be that hard to find.
ReplyDeleteEver would be nice but I'd take what I could get.
ReplyDeleteThe major ones I mean.
ReplyDeleteWow. Warrior rocking an 88% winning %.
ReplyDeleteI actually did find title matches but you have to search card by card to find them.
ReplyDeleteI think they enforce the, "you need to have a licence to enforce the show" rule, but a lot of states have commissions that have rules on the books that are never enforeced.
ReplyDeleteInternet. I didn't know how to appreciate the "sport" if it wasn't real, then I got on the Internet and learned about star ratings, workers (I mean, I'd always loved Ric Flair and Bret Hart more than Sid, and would rather watch a Rockers match than a Hogan squash, but it was the Internet that helped me understand it all).
ReplyDeleteWhen I was five and my dad decided that being a dick was funnier than letting his son enjoy himself.
ReplyDeletecagematch.net is the most thorough website I have ever seen for stuff like this.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get it; I could tell guys were obviously getting hurt, and I couldn't understand why if it was fake a guy like Vader would just "let" someone win.
ReplyDeleteAh, to be dumb again.
I'd like to think if I had seen the 94 Rumble live, that would have been it for me, but I missed that ppv and WrestleMania X was SO realisitc (I mean, if it's fake, a guy like Lex Luger HAS to win, but if it's real Bret Hart's hard work wins out, right?) and managed to continue my markish ways.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Undertaker debuted in 1990, my brother (who was not a fan) and I were both like, "Hey, wasn't he on that other show (WCW) a few months ago?"
ReplyDeleteI remember reading that in PWI in the late 80s/early 90s.
ReplyDeleteWhen did you read it on rspw? it was pretty openly acknowledged as part of the Bret/Owen feud.
Ah, early UFC, where you could see knight jousting against a sumo wrestler.
ReplyDeleteUFC needs to start taking pages from WWE's book. I want to see ladder matches and triple threat matches now.
I remember being at a house show and losing my mind when a light hit "fake diesal" and I said it was Isaac yankem.... My friends concurred and I was a genius for quite awhile.
ReplyDeleteThanks, this one is by far the easiest to use.
ReplyDeleteMy first clue that wrestling might be fake was when I was 10 and I tried putting the Sharpshooter on my sister. That's when I realized the move is virtually impossible to put on your opponent as long as he's kicking.
ReplyDeleteI have locked the figure four on someone before though. That ones doable.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad always told me from the time I started watching (My first wrestling memories are the Megapowers exploding) that it was a work. He's is an old-school New Yawk Bruno Sammartino fan and I'm pretty sure he always was "in on it"
ReplyDeleteI found out when Jim Duggan and Iron Sheik got arrested while driving together. Soon afterwards I started reading the Wrestling Eye magazine that exposed a lot of the business way before the internet did.
ReplyDeleteI tore my anus once... once...
ReplyDeleteI think it was Jake Roberts who said "The fans knew they just didn't want to know"
ReplyDeleteRandom: Just discovered there were two dark ladder matches back in 95 for the IC title. Jarrett vs Bulldog and Jarrett vs Razor. I'm hoping they'll show up on the dark match DVD that is coming out.
ReplyDeleteTJ: LeBron just killed the Warriors
ReplyDeleteThere's an old film from the 40's exposing wrestling as fake. I forgot the actor's name but he was well known during that time.
ReplyDeleteMy mom smartened me to the business by revealing the Montreal Screwjob to me while walking me to school, although I suspected. I existed in a kinda paranormal half mark/half smark state for years afterward, then I discovered CAW wrestling(Anyone remember that No Mercy CAW league with like Shadow the Hedgehog and Mario and all the video game characters?), NoDQ.com, then I got fully hooked on by an ROH match between.......I want to say Daniels/Low Ki v Spanky/Bryan?
ReplyDeleteThreadjack: I wish Canadians would stop pretending they give a damn about any aspect
ReplyDeleteof the Olympics not named "Men's Ice Hockey" People condemn me for a
lack of respect, but what kind of respect is it to pretend to care about
an athlete that won a gold medal they worked their entire career to
achieve, then forgetting about it when CROSBY GETS THE GOLDEN GOAL FOR
CANADA!!!!11!!!
My favourite was people telling me that the wrestlers used wires to jump around. I mean, yeah it's a work, but WHAT?
ReplyDeleteIt took me FOREVER to realize that Smash and Repo Man, two of my favourites, were the same guy. But at least one wore facepaint and they talked differently.
ReplyDeleteThe early UFCs were awesome- like a combination of freakshow and Street Fighter II with all the different outfits and fighting styles. Now it's all Wrestling/BJJ/Muay Thai with very few guys outside of the template. I wanna see fucking Dragon Style Kung Fu against Tae Kwon Do, goddammit!
ReplyDeleteI got banned from wrestling for two weeks after putting my brother in a fake piledriver (we always let each other down softly) but lost my grip, sending him headfirst onto the floor.
ReplyDeleteI've seen two. One was a Charlie Chan movie (I think), and another was some black & white film where an ex-boxer was upset over being asked to "take dives", and the promoter trying to insist that "these aren't exactly DIVES"
ReplyDeleteYou think you may be generalizing? just a bit?
ReplyDeleteYeah but did you do the five moves of doom first?
ReplyDeleteDVD???!!!!!!?!!!
ReplyDeleteLast I heard they were releasing a best of Off Air moments. Like all the Austin beer bashes and stuff like that and plus dark match main events. That Hell in a Cell dark match that Cena was in is supposedly on it.
ReplyDeleteDo you mean movies about wrestlers, or footage of matches?
ReplyDeleteThe oldest fiction film I've seen with a match in it is Requiem for a Heavyweight, but there's no way it's the earliest.
I hate how people all of a sudden care about sports that they literally will not watch again until the next Olympics and people that they had never heard of until the media run up to the games.
ReplyDeleteAt least the hockey love is genuine.
I didn't know it until I got online. Had no idea he was Krusher Krushev even longer. The tattoo should have gave it away, if anything
ReplyDeleteI wanna see Tank Abbott violently knock out some fat schmuck.
ReplyDeleteCurling is somewhat of an obsession for them also.
ReplyDeleteThe 1962 movie Requiem for a Heavyweight starring Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason and Mickey Rooney (with a small appearance by Cassius Clay) featured Quinn as a over-the-hill boxer who is offered a wrestling contract but doesn't want to do it because it's fake. Before the movie, there was a 1956 television version starring Jack Palance and a 1957 BBC version starring Sean Connery.
ReplyDeleteI definitely recommend the 1962 version (I haven't seen the others), but it definitely makes it clear that wrestling being "fixed" was an open secret. I figure enough people on both sides of the Atlantic saw at least one of these movies.
Rarely read PWI and wasn't really watching wrestling during the Bret/Owen feud, so I never caught it.
ReplyDeleteDDT'd a kid onto the cement floor of the wieght room. Didnt hurt him at all, apparently Im a pretty safe worker. Worst anybody got hurt from our locker room/weight room/wrestling room matches was when I tried to do a neckbreaker rude awakening style. Never figured that would hurt but it did I guess (or he was a puss)
ReplyDeleteseriously I would be in such good shape if I had a ring to run around in and bump in, instead Im just lazy and "husky"
ReplyDeleteThey need to put the Raw after WM28 tag match on there and keep it unedited.
ReplyDeleteOutside of it not saying that Prime Wrestling is a dead promotion, this website is awesome!
ReplyDeleteThough I think that wasnt an uncommon term back then. I think they are saying it more in terms of the crowd hates this guy so he is tonights villain more than here is a guy named George Smith but tonight he is playing Fritz Sanchez the evil mexican Nazi, but we know he isnt really.
ReplyDeleteIts funny I remember the exact time I realized Stone Cold used to be stunning. It was as simple as him using a stun gun in a match and the stunner and I started noticing they both began with stun and then BOOM Stunning Steve Austin. Felt like a complete idiot. To balance that though I instantly knew Repoman was Smash because of his tattoos right after he came out.
ReplyDelete