I knew about this Lance Von Erich thing, where Fritz Von Erich just decided to bring in a fake cousin to his actual sons, but somehow I assumed that they would go with someone who would bear some sort of family resemblance to the Von Erich brothers. Nope; they just slapped the name on some random musclebound dude and hoped for the best. Even hackier than I was imagining.

Muhammad Ali was working all those wrestling events to promote his match with Antonio Inoki which was available on closed-circuit TV (promoted by Vince McMahon Jr.). The confrontation with Monsoon is incredible given Ali's status in the sports world at the time.





Greg Valentine got a lot of his heal heat by injuring popular wrestlers with his figure-four leglock. Chief Jay Strongbow and Tito Santana were two victims of broken legs in the WWF during different runs.

Ali clearly seems to be playing the heel in that clip and no AWA guys this time around. It's scary that you can almost already see somewhat of a dazed look in his eyes in the close up here. Like it's taking him an extra second or two to process things.

Chief Jay Strongbow may have been the most useless of them all and that includes his time as an agent from what I've read.

Man Tito vs Valentine Lumberjack match is one of my favorite matches ever. Or the steel cage match where Valentine smashes the belt. Tito's wife threw the belt out because it was broken. Imagine what that would be worth today.

The special they're premiering about Yokozuna right now has been good. I didn't realize he was only 34 when he died. Obviously knew he died quite young, but I still assumed he was past 40.

I started watching in 1989, and while I have back-filled their PPV matches from before that point, there was definitely Tito and Valentine stuff that I never saw. Most of my opinion is based on 1989 and forward.

Watched a show from 1978 that opened with Vince interviewing the American Dream in an empty arena. Found strange considering what he'd turn Dusty into in just another decade.

Haystacks Calhoun was billed at 600 pounds. He certainly didn't look it here. Maybe he wasn't at his heaviest at this time, but I couldn't find any evidence online that they fudged his billed weight much.

Early career babyface Larry Zbysdlkjalsdfo feel odd too.

Freddie Blassie was much better than I remember him being, but he was basically on his way out when I first started watching.

and Sting is still on tv 6 years later.

I've often wondered why Bob Backlund in 1978 and why for six years? Now, in seeing the roster on many of their shows from that era, I'm not sure there was another viable choice. Very few of them look like they've seen the inside of a gym.

I guess if Vince Sr wanted someone who could believably beat everyone, sure, Backlund's your guy, but the charisma is non-existent. To solve the problem, you stick him with a manager with even less charisma, though I've read that was mostly just a favor to Skaaland.

Doing some revisionist history, assuming Vince Sr wanted a babyface champion, who else could he have strapped in that period?

Andre - Nobody wanted to over-expose him. He was an attraction.

Ivan Putski - Wonder if Vince thought he was too short, but he was also very one dimensional. One of the few guys who seemed to know where to find the gym though.

Larry Zbyszcko - Bruno's protege. Would have been an interesting choice.

Dusty Rhodes - I wonder why he didn't go here, unless Dusty wouldn't commit and didn't want it.

Dino Bravo - I never knew he had a WWE run around this time. Young guy, looked great, one-half of the tag champs in '78. This could have been interesting, but perhaps the French accent didn't do it for Vince in the northeast at the time.

I guess the point is, I never realized that they may not have even had enough guys on the roster to fill a Royal Rumble at this point in time.

Looks like they didn't have 30. They list a roster of 35 at this link, but that does not include 30 male wrestlers.

https://www.thesmackdownhotel.com/ro...978#wwe-all-35

Feels like Superstar Graham could have gone face and that it could have worked better than Backlund.

I saw that list but don't think it's right because Dusty's not on there and a couple of other people I've seen on shows, but yeah, that's a small roster.

The Superstar Graham turn would have been interesting, but why that never happened? Graham has said that he was frustrated he wasn't allowed to turn and given various other reasons for not retaining, but he's never seemed a very trustworhy narrator and perhaps that's the reason they pulled the plug on him in the first place.

Unfortunately, I've never found any accounts of his story outside of his own.

I agree that Graham isn't to be taken blindly at his word. And I don't doubt that he was a headache. Of course, Vince couldn't shake off his loyalty to one of the greatest headaches in history in Shawn Michaels, so I'm not sure if that would explain why he wouldn't go that route.

Well it wasn't him at that point, was it? Wasn't Sr in control until the early 80s?

Yeah, you're right. 1982 was the sale.

I can't pretend to know much about how Vince Sr. did business and whether he would have tolerated a headache.

By the way, I've been using this list to look through some of the earliest stuff on the network chronologically. I don't think it's being updated anymore, but seems pretty damn sufficient.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wwe_network..._shows_chron_9

Did they take the Coliseum Video stuff off the Network? I cant' seem to find it anywhere.

I see “Home Video Classics” under “Originals.”

awesome thanks. Wish it was better organized on there.

It still gets updated I think. It added the Wrestling Challenge shows from 1986 when they were uploaded less than three weeks ago.

Koko B. Ware's theme is another casualty of copyright issues? That was the one thing I kind of enjoyed about Koko.

Didn't realize that Virgil had wrestled as a jobber before becoming Virgil. Disorienting to see him in the ring as jobber Luscious Brown, and then hear "Real American" hit and Paul Orndorff comes to the ring (during that brief period when he had co-opted Hogan's theme).

Butch Reed makes his WWF debut on the 9/27/86 Wrestling Challenge. Ring announcer pauses and calls him "Mr. Natural" Hacksaw Butch Reed. My first reaction was "LOL WTF," but I didn't realize that he had actually used "Hacksaw" Butch Reed in his prior wrestling career, feuding with Jim Duggan over it. It was still a flub by this announcer, but not such a weird one once I got the background.

Jim Cornette talks about the potential of Dusty Rhodes as a WWWF champion in the late '70s, why Vince Sr. wanted an "All-American Boy" as his champion, and how Bob Backlund was placed into that spot.

In addition to what you'll hear in the video, Vince Sr. was tired of the insane fans of Bruno Sammartino (Italians) and Pedro Morales (Puerto Ricans) going near-riot whenever their favorite was severely attacked by the heels.

Bob Backlund was very popular but didn't inspire the fanatic devotion which would sometimes cause problems for the promotion. Backlund was also a company man whereas Sammartino frequently used his leverage to get what he wanted even if Vince Sr. wasn't interested in Sammartino's ideas.

"Jakes the best! Jakes the best! Jakes the best! "

"A million dollar body and a 10 cent brain"

"Pat Patterson? What a relic he is"