Wrestling Nonsense: Comments That Don't Warrent a Thread
Apr 10, 2020 9:21:59 GMT -5
Post by nintendologic on Apr 10, 2020 9:21:59 GMT -5
Well, what was it? Haha!
I was going to say that I've noticed a common problem with 80s and 90s All Japan tags. The opening minutes are usually a waste of time. It doesn't lead to anything, and the work isn't terribly interesting in its own right. They're just kind of aimlessly trading holds and moves until it's time for the "real" match to begin. I was curious if anyone else got that impression.
Its not quite accurate to say that NY was killed in the 1930s. Londos vs Ray Steele drew 21,000 to Yankee Stadium in 1931. As late as July 1935, Danno O'Mahoney vs Chief Little Wolf in Yankee Stadium drew 25,000. I suspect the real problem was Jim Londos dropping the world title in 1936 and then doing his world tours? Quoting Steve Yohe, "When they took the title off him in 1936 the sport went into a 'dark age.'"
There's actually a section in the latest Observer that touches on this. Business had been struggling after Londos had his falling-out with Jack Curley, but the downfall really began when Dick Shikat shot on Danno O'Mahony in their match at MSG, which led to a series of lawsuits that exposed the business. The public by this point was mostly hip to the fact that wrestling was fixed, but they still believed that the champions were real wrestlers. In any event, MSG didn't run a single wrestling card between 1938 and 1949. And the 1949 card, headlined by Gorgeous George, was a total flop.
"More people saw wrestling in the 70s than any other decade" is an oft-repeated Meltzer line. SF, LA & Detroit died off for various reasons but many of the territories were yet to have their hottest run by the mid-late 70s. The mid-late 70s saw the ascension of Flair & Steamboat in Crockett, Lawler & Dundee in Memphis, Rose & Piper in Portland, the Dusty babyface turn in Florida was 1974. JYD & Tommy Rich were becoming major stars at the end of the decade in Mid-South & Georgia. The Von Erich kids are right around the corner. I dunno when AWA was at their peak drawing wise, but they certainly weren't dead & dying in the mid-late 70s.
According to Meltzer, 1970-73 was a period of record business for most territories, but many of them started going into a tailspin in 1974. Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas were consistently strong throughout the decade, but they were the exceptions. LA and Detroit were the third- and fifth-largest cities in the country at the time, so those territories going down the tubes was a major blow to the industry. Amarillo was all but dead as well. The All-Star/Grand Prix promotional war killed wrestling in Montreal for several years. Stampede was on death's door before Dynamite Kid turned things around. The rest of Texas and the AWA weren't dying by any means, but they had fallen off greatly from their early 70s peaks.
Didn't the Midnights & Cornette come in for a TV Taping around that time and say fuck that, or am I imagining that?
I'm not aware of the WWF ever bringing in the MX, but they did bring in the Freebirds in 1984, who flamed out in record time. That might be what you're thinking of.
What a terrible decision by the NY athletic commission. Masked wrestlers are the best. Do you have any idea when it actually started? There's the famous Masked Marvel tournament but that was in the 20s. If there were no masked wrestlers for like 50 years in NY that would be fucking crazy! I've been sort of eyeing Beyer's book during the lockdown as something I might want to reread. I'm sure he had something to say about never working in New York and the mask ban, I just don't remember it.
The Masked Marvel incident was in 1915, so it was some time after that. My understanding is that it was a consumer protection measure so promotions couldn't do something like book a wrestler in multiple cities and have a different guy under the mask in each city. It's not as if promoters were above that sort of thing.