This Day in Pro Wrestling History

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Dale Gagner

 

[Valeyard]

I know, but that leads to his Gagne profile on linkedin where he says he was formerly of the AWA.

I don't think it's appropriate to use the hard R.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

it's bolded but it's a silent R.

 

[RedJed]

33 years ago today, AWA held its last television taping.

@BruiserBrody death rattle.

I believe a young @RedJed may have been at this taping too.

It's weird Harley Race was there. I thought he was already with WCW at this point.

I indeed was there....in Rochester and it was a sad state. Barely anyone there.....buy 1, get 3 extra tickets.......the energy in the arena was very weird to say the least

And on the subject of Dale Gagne(r)......I had ran an arts and entertainment magazine in the 2000s and did work with him a bit on promotion for his indy shows around southern MN. He was certainly a character. Reminded me alot of Scott D'Amore in some ways. He also had ownership in a non-wrestling related business locally....it was a store that more was in the vein of tech toys.....some drones, etc. Also he connected me to one of his affiliate organizations, AWA RUSH, which ended up having a show right in front of my apartment as part of a summer festival I put on through owning and running that magazine. It was a fun experience for sure as the workers used my apartment for a locker room/hangout place and after the festival ended, came up to my apartment to see the crew watching old FMW dvds I had. The only name of prominance out of this crew was Ariya Daivari who was just starting up, this was back in 07.

 

[JHawk]

Somehow those results don't list the Team Cha;;enge Series finale battle royal, Harley vs. Zbyszko, Destruction Crew vs. Trooper/DJ Petersen or Johnnie Stewart vs. [name redacted], which considering they were the TV main events seems like a big omission.

EDIT: Those matches got a separate listing as if they all aired on episode of the show

AWA Championship Wrestling « Events Database « CAGEMATCH - The Internet Wrestling Database

Internet Wrestling Database

www.cagematch.net

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

24 years ago today, the unaired pilot for ECW on TNN was filmed in Toledo, Ohio.

It wasn’t going to get that much better than that but dorks who lived in puritan New England states still thought it was pretty good!

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://x.com/monsoonclassic/status/1696103423442137171?s=46&t=gb4yPUPRHiWQCHuwXgXLUQ

30 year anniversary of theme park studio tapings.

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1704471698219651108

I don't recall the 1st proposal at all off hand. The second one was on the same VHS tape as my neighbor taped Slamboree 93 and KOTR 93 IIRC so I watched it quite a bit.

The Jeopardy theme is a little bit of an odd choice.

 

[Valeyard]

If that's the one where he makes her hold his used kleenex, it's on Prime Cuts.

I miss Heenan.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Other marriage proposal was Green Lantern Fan. I wonder if they did a second one cause Green Lantern Fan went on John Arezzi and more or less implied he just proposed so he could get on RAW and meet Bobby Heenan.

 

[Valeyard]

My favorite Green Lantern Fan story is causing shit during the ROH show they filmed the climax of The Wrestler at.

 

[alfdogg]

40 years ago today

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1714415995077448162

 

[Valeyard]

Snuka invented the tard bump in the Backlund match, too. Which is a really awesome match.

Snuka/Muraco has the worst finish.

 

[BruiserBrody]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1715695084824367344

Do we have any clue what was announced for San Antonio before they pivoted to Savage/Snake and Hogan/Taker for the PPV?

Dark matches are Piper/Flair LOD/Rockers LOD/Disasters and a slew of tryouts.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I think it was just announced as a normal TV taping then switched to a PPV semi-last minute.

 

[alfdogg]

Jakes original opponent was Mr. Madness

 

[Valeyard]

I thought it was just a house show since it was the "nearest possible date" according to Tunney.

Show NEEDED Flair/Piper, or at least Flair/anyone. Flair's whole thing of just wearing his gear without a match back in those days still bugs me.

LOD/Rockers should have happened too because it would've been great and had some nice moments building to Shawn's turn.

But the entire Jake/Savage portion of that show is perfection.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

This Tuesday in Texas is such a great lean PPV (that's a precursor to IYH) that I wouldn't know what substitute. Not every star being on the show adds to the photo IYH feel.

Flair should've changed into street clothes though. Flair coming out to ringside wearing his gear on shows he didn't have a match on really added to the feeling that the WWF run was the Muppet Babies version of Ric Flair.

 

[Valeyard]

It's the week after Survivor Series, which had matches that could all build reasonably into another show. It's a new concept and you have the talent so why not go for it? The world wasn't hurting for another Bulldog/Warlord ppv encounter.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I can excuse Flair wearing his ring gear at This Tuesday in Texas because he has a non televised match and maybe didn't feel like changing out of his gear but why the hell did he wear it at SummerSlam '92? Has he been asked that in a shoot. It's always bothered me.

 

[Valeyard]

Dark matches don't matter to a ppv audience though. Maybe if they put it on the Coliseum Video cut as an exclusive. Not like Supertape 92 couldn't have handled it.

I want to watch Bret/Skinner again now though. Sometimes I remember it being a fun little match, others I'm bored to tears. Very similar to Bret/Taker at the Rumble now I think about it. But I also have realized I am not a Steve Keirn fan.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1717143175737860406

Another big stumble during WCW’s slow, lumbering decline. At least, DDP/Goldberg and Jericho/Raven rocked.

 

[Valeyard]

DDP probably should've ended the streak in hindsight. Jackhammer into Diamond Cutter, three count, huge celebration with confetti and being on people's shoulders, handshake with Goldberg. Run the rematch at either Starrcade or Superbrawl with nWo feuds in between. Anything with Nash or Hogan doesn't hurt close to as much if the streak ends there and it cements DDP

 

[BruiserBrody]

Hard for Eric to ignore Hulk and Nash as WCW was still humming along, but there's all sorts of what if's if WCW manages to oust Hogan etc from power.
Not sure the place doesn't implode anyway. even if Goldberg blows through Nash, Hall, Bigelow etc as champ in 99 gets rolling.

An actual brand split when Thunder started in 98 may have given the room for Scott Steiner, DDP, Vanilla Midgets to move into a real main event rotation. Hulk and Nash can each have a brand to stroke their weiners over and the NWO champ/WCW champ of each brand was already set up since July of 96.

Give Thunder the working class unit and Bret and Flair can hopefully elevate Benoît, Jericho and Eddy.
Sat Night can be 1 hour of each brand...probably taped before that week's TV of each show.
Worldwide too.

I don't know if the NWO splinter angle works better if each claims a brand or what, but there's that twist to consider.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

That's an angle that could have been booked way better, the nWo split. As it is, the Wolfpac got members that were anti-nWo from the jump, and Hollywood got the job guys (but did start to elevate Scott Steiner).

 

[Valeyard]

I just didn't like two nWo factions. It just was overkill and Sting should never have been in one. It helped Steiner and Konnan, and I guess Disco kinda, but it was a shitshow and felt like they were out of ideas.

Goldberg chugs along fine until March I think. Like loses to Hogan the night after Wrestlemania or something.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

The thing with the nWo split is I understand the intentions (DOUBLE THE nWo MONEYS), but the execution just fell through after Nash and Savage officially split from Hogan. I don't really remember there being much interaction between the two groups, outside of Konnan/Giant feuding and all the bullshit teases about Nash/Hall, and they were just a collection of fan favorites who said their catchphrases and then had a match and went home.

I think true faction warfare could be done right within the wrestling medium, but there would need to be a lot of GoT/House of Cards/etc. "politicking" angles between them. Basically devolving into turf wars. The closest I've seen this work was during a period of DG (couldn't tell you the years off the top of my head, but IIRC it cemented YAMATO's face turn against Shingo?).

 

[Valeyard]

For me, the whole point of the nWo was to take over WCW. Not only did two factions mean it succeeded, but Sting being in one meant it was just all over. My investment was predominently in the war between WCW and the nWo, and the nWo effectively took over the show AND the face of WCW while the announcers talked one side up and the fans cheered for the people who came to kill the company they were meant to be watching. You add in that this all consisted of people who had literally been all over TV since the storyline began, most of whom had been on TV in some form most of my life. It couldn't have worked less for me and it wound up hurting everything. But then I also thought the storyline stopped being super effective when non-WWF guys joined so I'm probably not to be taken too seriously.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

I think the Wolfpac should've been capped at 4-5 people, shouldn't have split the Outsiders, and they should've had to earn the trust of the WCW crew. Have Nash deal the final blow to Hogan and the nWo if you must around Fall Brawl, sending Hogan into Hogan/Warrior II even more paranoid because he doesn't have his cronies, and that's when the Wolfpac finally gets the respect by Sting, DDP, Goldberg, etc. after trying to earn their trust all summer (sort of a reverse case of Sting from the early nWo days).

You can literally still do Nash winning WW3 and ending the Streak at Starrcade, maybe even still do the nWo Elite thing at the beginning of '99, but it adds some new flavors getting there.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1717893990438092937

I’ll take “Most forgettable HIAC matches” for $500, Ken.