I ran into Lunde a few years ago. I think I'm running up on the point where some of the territory stuff starts to mix in on the Network. It's a shame that Peacock chose to remove (or at least hide really well) all the Web Gem stuff. Wish there were an easily sortable timeline of network stuff, but that to doesn't appear readily available from my searches.

Where does this rank among the all time GOAT feuds? The promo work in the lead up was outstanding and you could tell Jumpin Jeff Farmer was going full force in this match. Crowd was red hot too.

"Shut up juice" correctly died in the marketplace of ideas, but somehow "roody poo candy ass" had long-term staying power.

It could never compete with

It’s kind of odd that he refused Happy’s bribe.

Rock had a cool way of saying the latter, which helped get it over. I can't imagine any way of saying "shut up juice" that would not make it sound lame as hell.

I was mystified by "roody poo candy ass" being in the heavy rotation even in the moment. Most of the other Rockisms landed well with me, but that was always the "we're really going with this forever, huh?" part of the act.

By all means, I commend that he kept trying new things along the way even if he didn't bat 1.000. When used well and not foreshadowed in a painfully ham-fisted way (which sometimes it was), the "it doesn't matter" interruption bit was great, and it was something he added multiple years after he had gotten big.

Watched the Candido/Sunny Dark Side today. Knew they were kind of from around my area because I ran into him at a bookstore I worked at not long before he died. Was surprised to learn they went to high school about 10-15 minutes from me. Played sports against his school for a few years, but they were a few years ahead of me, so I doubt I ever would have run into them without noticing at the time.

Lol loved the Roody poo candy ass taunts!

It's so weird watching King Kong Bund with long hair being pinned by Tony Garea, who is essentially enhancement talent when I first start watching in the mid-80s. The next week, Bundy/Cannon gets an actual entrance and is really put over by Vince against another semi-enhancement talent (Rick McGraw). Vince bills him at 384 lbs. I wonder if they are starting here to build him into something more, but nope.

If you don't know McGraw, incidentally, he was the guy it was rumored (back when some people still thought it was real) that Roddy Piper killed in the ring just a few years later.

https://www.sportscasting.com/rowdy-...hocking-death/

I don't know if it's because the roster is very small at this point or something else, but in mid-81, WWE is showing a lot of throwback matches on it's weekly one hour show. Usually an older Bruno title defense. The one they showed on the episode I had on last night featured Bruno defending against Volkov in the mid to late 70s it appeared. Bruno went for a body slam, Nikolai fell on top of him and the ref started his pin count. Bruno just forgot to kick out, so the ref just stopped his count. He was pinned for far longer than the 3 count. Under today's instructions, I believe they tell refs to just count normally and it's the wrestler's obligation to kick out. I wonder if Bruno would have lost his title in today's world. Or are there different ref instructions in bigger matches? What if it were Roman?

The Moondogs are tag champs, but Moondog King has been replaced by Moondog Spot. I google the history of this change and learn that Moondog Spot died of a heart attack in the ring during a battle royal in 2003. Googling WWE wrestlers from this period ('81) over the last week has generally led to them having heart attacks in the ring.

Moondog Spot was part of the best finish in wrestling history.

https://www.wwe.com/videos/junkyard-...stling-classic

That's great. It was actually mentioned in his Wiki that he Spot beat Terry Funk in the first round of the tournament before losing to JYD.

Still beats the King Kong Bundy 5-count though.

Mr. Wrestling II was a worthless masked wrestler in Mid-South. He had been around a while without necessarily drawing a notable crowd reaction when Bill Watts randomly said one week, "And when Mr. Wrestling II comes out here, the crowd always breaks out in this chant of 'II! II! II!'" And I thought, "WTF? No they don't." And then they started doing it in the following weeks, which he would continue to encourage by lavishing it with praise, which I assume is what kept the crowd doing it week after week.

Bill Watts did a lot of things right, and I wouldn't have thought he would be a terroristic sing-along enabler, but there we are.

I'm noticing the same type of thing with heels and their managers creating their own taunts. I hadn't heard the crowd call Sgt Slaughter Gomer before or King Kong Mosca Ping Pong until they told the crowd to stop doing it in ringside interviews. Muraco's Beach Bum may have been another one.

"Don't you dare call him (insert taunt they want to create for themselves)"

Mid-June '81 WWE show

Starts with a brand new enhancement talent in the ring. Vince tells us it's his first appearance as his opponent, George "The Animal" Steele comes down the aisle. It quickly becomes apparent what this man's particular talent is. He can pop his shoulder out of his socket. It's made to look like the Animal, who really does some vicious heel work, has badly injured this man, as he's flopping around on the floor like a fish.

I had never seen much of the Animal's heel stuff before and thought he was always somewhat of a comedy act, but not true. He's actually very good in this crazy heel role. I wonder if such a character would be allowed today or would it be called out for exploiting mental health.

Anyway, immediately during the next match, Vince announces that the man's injuries are so bad that he's had to retire after one match. This made me laugh pretty hard.

They shot an angle with Andre on this same show. Killer Khan had broken Andre's foot or ankle and they've been doing interviews leading up to him getting the cast off. Freddie Blassie comes out to confront Andre and the giant whacks him. I'd never seen Blassie take a bump before. Khan comes out and cracks Andre with the crutch, barely missing Vince with the blow. Vince physically inserts himself and goes after the heels, chasing them off. WTF? Vince never gets physically involved in this era, although you can understand it because they were attacking his daughter's best friend.

It's taken me awhile to realize there are only ever two tag teams active in the WWF at any time during this period and the babyface team is usually two singles guys put together so the lone heel team (Valiants, Samoans, or Moondogs) would have an adversary and challenger for the titles.

Also wondering why they never went with Martel as a singles star here. He's extremely popular and looks great. It has to be the accent.

I believe that Khan/Andre segment actually got replayed on Mid-South. It was jarring to just see Bill Watts throw it over to Vince's company for a clip to give context to Killer Khan in Mid-South. Watts became hostile to Vince over time, but the relationship must have been okay at that point.

There was a period in maybe the 90s, pre-Attitude Era, where Watts booked for Vince. I'm not exactly sure what the timing was, but I believe that's where the heat stems from. Bruce talks about it often on his podcast. J.R. may have too.

That is pretty wild though. I wouldn't call WWE a territory as they had their own World Championship, but prior to Vince buying there certainly is some cooperation. Considering how small the WWE roster is, they would often bring in guys (occasionally even Race as champion) for bigger house shows and the NWA title would be on the line. I don't think they have Mid-South episodes for that month on the network, so probably a few months later when that feud was over and Khan moved on would make a lot of sense.

Yeah, here's a poor-quality video of Khan showing up in Mid-South, and they reference the Andre thing right away. I assume the clip itself must have shown up in an episode shortly after that.

I keep seeing this WNBA commercial where the woman says, "...taught me how to win, and taught me how to lose..."

And all I can ever think of is Red Rooster uncorking the silly line during his WM V promo that he was going to teach Bobby Heenan something that Heenan never taught him: how to lose. Why the **** would your manager have taught you how to lose?

Curt Hennig has just shown up as enhancement talent in June of '81 in a match where he and his partner were fed to the Moondogs. Went by his real name, but no mention of being a second generation wrestler. Just a guy.

"I am what I say I am. And I say, I'm absolutely Perfect."

The next week, Hennig faces another enhancement talent and wins with Patterson mentioning his father, Larry the Ax.

Blassie seems to imply that he had Kahn attack Andre because he beat Hogan and tried to put him (Blassie) out of business.

It had become extremely obvious that Muraco is miles ahead of any other heel (or babyface) on the mic. He doesn't need a manager, although they appear to be mandatory for heels (I'm wondering who the first heel to show up without a manager will be). As soon as I realize this, he shows up with the IC strap the next week. I wonder if he was ever considered for a world title run in this era.