Episode 137 - Carolina Drama

Dusty Rhodes bemoans to Magnum TA and David Crockett how Baby Doll spent $4035 of his money in Hawaii.

I’m happy to say that after almost ten years of doing the podcast, I can finally welcome Rob Naylor (@NINaylor) to the podcast to talk about Jim Crockett Promotions in the summer of 1985, when Rob and I both starting watching the company.

We begin by talking about how we first found it, possibly on the same TV station in Philadelphia, even though we live 200 miles from each other in different states. And yes for longtime listeners, we play Mid-Atlantic TV Station Bingo (17, 29, 43, 45, 54, 57). We talk about our favorite wrestlers from those shows, including the booker at the time and later Rob’s mentor Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Magnum TA, Ole and Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Baby Doll, Sam Houston, Manny Fernandez, Jimmy Valiant, the Rock and Roll Express, the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette, Ron Bass, Black Bart, J.J. Dillon and maybe our favorite person of that era, Nature Boy Buddy Landell.

We discuss how the guys in the Georgia loop of the company were rarely on the syndicated TV shows, which is all Rob and I could watch regularly, since neither of us had cable yet. We discuss some of the more memorable angles and feuds of that time frame. Suprisingly, we totally did not discuss the return of Superstar Billy Graham to wearing the tie-dye gear and quoting Bo Diddley and/or George Thorogood.

There’s also a lot of meandering and digressions as one would expect, including the importance of the magazines in our fandom, first getting the Observer, the history of the National, booking around Japan tours, the blandness of Central States and, as young fans, not undestanding the importance of the Missouri title in the wider NWA ecosystem.

This was a very fun show to do and I’m glad Rob and I finally got to nerd out on the show about our early fandom.

Episode 110 - Million Dollar Bash

The Great American Bash issue from Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

We’re happy to welcome back Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) for another marathon pod. The main focus of the episode is the first Great American Bash in July 1985. We go over the show match-by-match, what was going on for each person at the time going into the show and where things were going after the show on the road to Starrcade 1985. We also talk about the other JCP show that night in Columbus, Georgia. There’s also discussion of both the magazine coverage of the show and the video tape, put out in conjunction with Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

From there, it’s a free for all, as we talk about tape trading, not only in wrestling but also hockey fights and old television shows, running shows in high school gyms and armories, which led to a discussion of the 1993 film Blue Chips, hockey road trips, the usual discussion of 1980s wrestling TV in the Baltimore/Washington area and much more.

As with most people these days, you can’t talk this long without some coughing fits. We tried to edit them out, but may have missed some, so please accept our apologies.

Also, our new podcast The Plot, done with When It Was Cool, now has two episodes:. The first is about the Mission Impossible TV show and the second is about the heist comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. You can find it in this podcast feed or over at the When It Was Cool Website. .

Thanks for listening.

Episode Ninety-Five - New Math

Danny Hodge on the cover of the April 1, 1957 issue of Sports Illustrated.

We’re happy to have the debut on the pod this week of Al Getz (@AlGetzwrestling) from Charting the Territories for a wide ranging conversation.

First, we discuss the life and times of Danny Hodge, who passed away last week at the age of 88. One of Al’s main areas of research is the Leory McGuirk territory, Hodge’s home for most of his career. We discuss Hodge’s amateur accomplishments in both wrestling and boxing, his transition to pro wrestling and his career highlights. Al has a number of great stories about Hodge, both in his younger days and the unfortunate end of his in-ring tenure following a car accident.

After that, we talk about an article Al wrote about the early career of pod favorite Buddy Landell. We talk about his start in Poffo’s ICW and his journey up the card until becoming a main eventer in Memphis, during his infamous run in 1986 teaming with Bill Dundee. We talk about his time in Mid-South, Mid-Atlantic and Puerto Rico. This leads to a wonderful digression about the journey wrestlers go on in finding the right persona to adopt in the ring.

We also talk about the statistical-based Al uses on his website and podcast to evaluate wrestlers, how it was inspired by baseball sabermetrics and the folly of using traditional sports metrics to try and analyze pro wrestling. There are also some fun stories about indy wrestling, involving folks like King Kong Bundy and the Honky Tonk Man.

Thanks for listening. Work is slowly continuing on our new It’s A Family Affair project, with a few weeks of Continental TV recapped on the website. We hope to have the next episode of the podcast up soon with a former wrestler as guest. Stay turned for more information. We hope you enjoy the show.

Episode Eighty-Five Splendid Isolation Four

Jerry Lawler, Dave Brown and Scott Bowden. RIP Scott.

First off, condolences to the friends and family of Scott Bowden, who died earlier this week. We had been talking to Scott the last couple weeks about returning to the podcast to talk Memphis wrestling and even were Tweeting with him a few days ago.

On the show we are finally to nabbed The King of Kingsport Beau James (@kingofkingsport) to be on the show. We start by remembering Scott, as Beau had just done his Kentucky Fried Rasslin’ podcast not that long ago. As one of the foremost experts on East Tennessee wrestling, we pick Beau’s brain on all things about the Knoxville/Southeastern/Continental/USA territory, so plenty of stories about Ron and Don Wright, Whitey Caldwell, Les Thatcher, Ron and Robert Fuller,, Jimmy Golden, Ron Garvin and many more folks. We also talk about Memphis, including the angle (see below) when Robert Fuller brought back Nick Gulas to do an angle about the control of the promotion. There’s way too many stories to listen here, including Beau’s long friendships with Buddy Landell and Jimmy Valiant, starting in the business at 16 years old, indy wrestling horror stories and so much more. Easily one of my favorites podcasts, as Beau is a master storyteller. If you want more, be sure to check out his new Patreon and his King of Kingsport website.

Episode Eighty-Four - Splendid Isolation Number Three

They Buried The Cowboy Under the Russian Flag!

We’re back with an extra-special edition of the new Splendid Isolation podcast series, as we welcome back Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) from Wrestling Observer Live and the Mid Atlantic Championship Podcast (@midatlanticpod).

We kick if off with a long chat about Bill Watts and the UWF, discussing how hot the promotion began after the name change from Mid-South Wrestling and its expansion outside its home region into places like Baltimore, where young Mike and slightly older Mark watched it in the spring of 1986. We reminisce about the initial title switches, promoting the Jim Crockett Sr Memorial Cup and one of the greatest angles of all-time, one so good we named a spin-off magazine after it: Eddie Gilbert and the Russians burying Watts under the USSR flag. We bracket that with the UWF TV show after the promotion was bought by JCP and just how quickly the show changed.

One of the other big topics covered is Mike’s new Mid-Atlantic Championshop Podcast, which he co-hosts with Roman Gomez. We talk about how the show started, why they chose 1982 as a starting point, some of the main players in the territory at the time and plenty of other JCP topics, including the Final Conflict show in 1983 and play WHAT IF? with various wrestlers (What if Gino had come in 1986? What if Buddy Landell had shown up for that TV taping?).

There’s plenty of other chat for the rest of the podcast, not limited to: the state of the territories by the mid 1980s, the hidden gem that was Southeastern Wrestling, the greatness of Ron Fuller’s Studcast podcast, classic 1980s TV and a brief chat at the end about sports uniforms.

Mike is always a great guest, so big thanks for him for giving so much of his time. We have more shows planned for the future, branching out in topics, so keep an eye out for them. Thanks for listening.