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 130 - Some Jackets Required

Don Fargo and his new Fabulous Fargos (Ken Timbs and Pat Rose) with host Christopher Love (Bert Prentice) from a 1987 episode of World Organization Wrestling

We’re happy to welcome back Al Getz (@AlGetzWrestling) to discuss the latest edition of his Charting the Territories books, this one covering 1971-1973 Gulf Coast Wrestling. We talk about the main players in the territory at this time, including Cowboy Bob Kelly, Bobby Shane, Don Fargo and Rip Tyler, as well as future stars like Kevin Sullivan, Steve Keirn, Ron Bass and Greg Valentine, wrestling as Don’s brother Johnny Fargo. We talk about the towns the promotion ran and some of the interesting ways they crowned champions there (not with belts or trophies).

Then, as we did recently with Beau James, we talk about the travails of being a wrestling historian, covering a business that’s built on a lie. How hard is it to get “accurate” data on things like shows, box office and the like? And Al talk us through his methodology, both online and boots on the ground research.

We chat about Al being inducted into the Tragos/Thesz Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo, Iowa, getting the James C. Melby Historian Award.

The show ends with some quick baseball chat, with the season just a week old and Al’s Atlanta Braves being the only National League East team with a winning record. He also tells us about his first road trip of the year and dealing with weather issues with early spring baseball in the Midwest.

And the next episode of the Charting the Territories will look at Dick the Bruiser’s WWA in Indianapolis coming next week.

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.