In The Pages Of… Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s 1985 Summer Annual

Occasionally, I like to thumb through my small collection of old pro wrestling magazines and write about what I read about it. This time, in honor of my Culture Crossfire colleague Sage Cortez looking back at 1985 in wrestling, I take a look at Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s 1985 Summer Annual. I’m excited to take a look back at a period when pro wrestling was arguably at its peak and it seemed like a number of different territories could co-exist (although WWF was already the undisputed king). It’s also a chance to get a rudimentary education of the wide world of ’80s wrestling. I’ve always been more of a ’90s wrestling fan at heart and have been looking to expand my knowledge a bit!

Two things really stood out to me as jarring about this issue. One was the amount of ads. I don’t really remember PWI being very ad heavy but this at least 40% ads and 100% of those ads were exactly the type of ads magazines don’t really publish anymore; locksmith kits! joke catalogs! Weightlifting sets so some guy won’t kick sand on you and your girlfriend at the beach. Then again, there aren’t many magazines to publish ads in anymore in the first place!

Second, it wasn’t until looking at this magazine more closely that I realized the Summer Annual wasn’t really an ordinary issue of PWI but rather a compilation of the “best” articles that the magazine produced. I was confused as hell as to why Greg Valentine and Kerry Von Erich were wrestling in 1985 and thought Bill Apter was being kind of a smark for insisting on calling The Iron Sheik, “Hussein Arab,” but then I actually read the intro and realized this was a best of issue. It’s also weird that this issue kind of seems nostalgic for the glory days of the territories when they were still actually alive and a lot of them were thriving. Although, I guess at this point, the majority of them had their best days behind them.

Our first article of  interest relates to Gary Hart’s tireless quest to reveal that the masked bearded maniac Charlie Brown is actually Jimmy Valiant. Disguise angles are always more fun in theory than execution and this DEFINITELY wasn’t an exception to the rule. I did get a chuckle out of some of the almost definitely made up quotes in this article though. Hart: “…Next he’ll come back as Linus, and then Schroeder, and then he’ll wear a dress into the ring, and say he’s Peppermint Patty!”

Next up is PWI’s Special Investigation of who is the man underneath the mask of the Super Destroyer. This is one of those PWI articles that’s so over the top in trying to put over a heel that it’s kind of funny. Matt Brock says that Super Destroyer should hide behind a mask because of all the havoc he wreaks on Georgia Championship Wrestling. Brock goes down to Atlanta to investigate who possibly could be under the mask. Candidates include; Cowboy Bob Orton, The Masked Superstar, and Mr. Wrestling II. Last two are really silly guesses. Wearing a mask over a mask? Do they think they’re Phantasio?

Then it’s time for our cover story about Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant’s super team and the PWI editorial staff’s assertion that, sooner or later, one of them will turn on the other. What an absurd prediction. The story quotes several unnamed promoters saying that combination is so volatile that a feud is inevitable and that they refused to team the pair because of that reason. One promoter is even quoted saying, in a hushed tone, that even though Andre-Hogan would be a license to print money, the ramifications of such a match would make him stupid for booking it. This brought me back to fond memories of Hulk’s pre-match promo at WrestleMania IV about how his match with Andre would literally destroy the Eastern Seaboard.

Also I’m mildly surprised that Apter and co. didn’t pull their usual trick of mentioning wrestler’s past gimmicks and runs in other promotions. You’d think they would bring up Hulk and Andre’s previous feuds but maybe they realized that there was more money for them too if they tried to pretend Hulk and Andre had never fought one on one.

Next up is an article from the Fall of ’82 about how Nick Bockwinkel avoided giving Rick Martel a shot at the AWA World Heavyweight title and now Otto Wanz is the champion. Otto Wanz being AWA World Champion during the peak of the AWA’s popularity is something that’s always confused the hell out of me. He’s probably the worst AWA World Champion of all time. At least, the legit AWA (sorry, Dale Gagner). I never got that. Your company is on the verge of breaking out on a huge nationwide scale and you put your belt on some fat, middle aged Austrian dude nobody’s ever heard of? Doesn’t make sense but not a lot of Verne Gagne’s decisions after the ’80s started really did.

This is followed by an article about the Brisco Brothers war with those maniacs, The Fabulous Freebirds. Weird part about this is the article is framed around Jack Brisco cooking a gourmet brunch for his brother and some of the team’s superfans. I feel like the notion of Jack Brisco being an amateur gourmet chef is some sort of inside joke Bill Apter came up with.

Then we get a really, classically batshit insane article about the ANCIENT ARAB SECRET in Hussein Arab (AKA Iron Sheik’s) pointy boots. A lot of people allege that his boots are doctored with POISON or GRATED DESERT SAND! But NOT SO according to Stu Saks, who traveled to… uh, somewhere in Arabia (he doesn’t really specify) to investigate. Apparently, Sheiky Baby’s boots are MAGICAL and were stolen from a museum. They originally belonged to some mythical Arab Warrior Akbar El-Kafir. WHAT A SCOOP!

Next is an article about how Larry Zbyszko somehow thought Bruno Sammartino screwed him over in Zbyszko’s shot at the WWF World title against Bob Backlund even though Sammartino had no involvement in the match. Ah, when Zbyszko whining about other wrestlers while putting himself over as one of the best in the business was only his gimmick.

Up netht if you weel ith an articull about if Duthty Rhodeth’ idealth are getting in thu way of heem being thu NWA World Champ-yun long term over Hahluh Rayth. Duthay Rhodeth ith dealing with thu HARD TIMES and wonders if it’s all worth it and if he should sacrifice hith INTEGRITY for one last run at the top.

Then it’s time for the color pin-ups. I always got a bit uncomfortable by them calling these posters, “pin ups,” because I associate pin ups with nude magazines. Then again, all of the guys in these posters are half naked.

After that, we get a look at what PWI deems the first contender for the match of the ’80s… a Missouri State title defense by Kerry Von Erich against Greg Valentine at the Checkerdome in St. Louis in the Summer of 1980. For the second article in a row, we tease a heel turn that never really happened as Von Erich is so flustered by Valentine’s heel antics that he vows to do anything to stop him and the author gravely speculates it’s a one way street that Von Erich won’t come back from!

Next up is an article about how insane Terry Funk is, which is really only half kayfabe. It’s funny. This is the only article here that could be published verboten in the 2000 PWI Summer Annual and somehow still seem relevant.

Finally, it’s the most anticipated part of these magazine the PWI Official Wrestler Ratings. For brevity’s sakes, I’ll just do the choice cuts.

Top 10
10. Jim Garvin
9. Ronnie Garvin
8. Billy (not yet Jack apparently) Haynes
7. Greg Valentine
6. Wahoo McDaniel
4. Hulk Hogan
3. Dusty Rhodes
2. Rick Martel
1. Ric Flair

PWI REALLY wasn’t getting along with WWF at that point and I know this magazine was bullshit anyway but having Hulk Hogan as the #4 wrestler in the Summer of ’85 seems a bit silly. Also Kerry Von Erich was Most Popular over Hogan (and Chris Adams was Most Hated over Roddy Piper). I know WCCW’s popularity was underrated but ’85 was the WWF’s year, period. I wonder if Bill Apter and co. regret the grudge against the WWF. Somehow I doubt it since they’ve managed to survive (and back in the ’80s and ’90s, thrive)  to this day with WWF often working against them.

Finally, we conclude with some quick “current” events news stories. First is on Sgt. Slaughter leaving the WWF to join the NWA and AWA. Sgt. Slaughter leaving WWF seems like one of those moves that should have been bigger than it really was. Slaughter was arguably the second biggest name in wrestling at the time but he didn’t really prove to be nearly as big of a draw outside WWF as he was when he was in the company. Same problem Jeff Hardy had. Though I doubt Sarge ever wrestled a PPV main event drugged up out of his gourd. Then they talk about Captain Lou Albano’s babyface turn. Weird aspect of that was it was somewhat centered around Roddy Piper accusing Captain Lou Albano of pocketing some money that the Captain and Cyndi Lauper raised for some MS Benefit. I get the concept of heel heat but it seems just weird to accuse somebody of pilfering from a legit fundraiser. Especially for a company that’s always been so eager to bring up all of the charities it works with. You think it’d just make said charities a bit suspicious even if it’s just a silly wrestling storyline.

Thus ends another look back at a classic wrestling magazine. It’s interesting looking back at these older magazines. There’s definitely a marked difference in the kayfabe mags of the ’80s and the ’90s. By the time I started reading PWI in the mid to late ’90s, the internet’s influence had kind of effected things. The magazines were more of a straight forward recap of the storyline with the occasional news story that you couldn’t find in the pages of WWF Magazine. In the ’80s though, it seemed like PWI was often creating its own storylines and seemed like it spent a lot of time trying to build something out of nothing. The stakes felt a whole lot higher reading these ’80s magazines but they also sure did feel a whole lot sillier.

Next Time on In The Pages Of… Connor looks back at Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s look back at the Supercards of 1987! Bill Apter recaps all of the action at WrestleMania III, The 2nd Annual Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Tag Team Tournament Cup, UWF’s Superblast at the Superdome, and the 4th Annual David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions.