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 103 - Blood Will Have Blood

Ric Flair vs Ted DiBiase, 1985 Mid-South TV. Thanks to Dick Murdoch, one of the best angles in wrestling history. It’s also one of the 100 Greatest Bloody Matches in Way of the Blade by Phil Schneider

We’re joined on the podcast by Phil Schneider (@philschneider) from DVDVR and Segunda Caida to discuss his new book, Way of the Blade: 100 of the greatest bloody matches in wrestling history.

We talk about how he came to write the book and some of the nuts and bolts behind it: how did he pick the matches to include and not include, wanting a wide geographical and historical spread without overloading one particular time and place and such. We talk about a good number of the matches in the book and many of the names you would expect in this type of project; Ric Flair, Terry Funk, Jerry Lawler, Abdullah the Butcher, the Great Muta and many more. We also talk about the companion podcast to the book, where Phil has had both wrestling writers and well as wrestlers themselves on discuss matched from the book, including Steve Keirn and Dustin Rhodes.

There’s also chat about the differences between watching wrestling live versus on tape or television, the greatness of Eddie Kingston, Negro Casas and Black Terry and all that French Catch Wrestling that Phil and his crew watch on Segunda Caida.

You can find Way of the Blade in print and digital at your favorite bookseller and the Way of the Blade podcast where you get your shows.

Episode Eighty-Three - Splendid Isolation Number 2

Nick Bockwinkel and Ray Stevens. Almost always worth watching

Splendid Isolation Number Two takes us around the world as we welcome back Odessa Steps contributer and Segunda Caida writer Matt D.

The fine folks at Segunda Caida (@segundacaida) embarked a little while ago on this project of reviewing classic French Catch wrestling. Matt is going to explain how the project started, describe what the product was like in France in the 1950s and 1960s, who some of the better wrestlers have been and more. (And all of this done without mentioning Roland Barthes.) Matt picked some of his favorite bouts so far for folks to check out if they have never seen this footage before.

Matt is also one of the more knowledgeable folks on the Paul Boesch era of Houston Wrestling, so we talk about the footage that the NWA posted on their youtube channel recently. We talk about what was new in that upload, but what to look for online of the Houston stuff that was put online as part of the NWA On Demand service a few years ago.

There’s also some brief lucha chat, because we never pass up a chance to talk about Negro Casas. Look for more episodes coming soon. Thanks for listening.