Ah man, I've always had a soft spot for old wrestling... was a big fan of it as a kid. Shame to see how shitty the product WWE puts out is.
Wow this was great! Thanks for sharing. It must be staged though. What can a dwarf like Marciano do against such a big man, huh?
lol Fritz Von Erich born and bred M Adkisson famly lived in Denton Texas just up I 35 from me in Ft Worth . was tragic what happened to his family
This could be a silly question, but was there ever a high profile real wrestling match that had no script? IN other words no rules, both guys want to win. If so, which one, and I would have to assume it was a stoppage win.
I believe the Zybsko v Munn fight was real and designed to be so, the Sammartino v Inoki fight developed into a real fight when Inoki began taking liberties.Both matches had a background of power struggles among promoters.
Yes. The lore of how wrestling became totally fake varies depending on who you ask, but it wasn't always so. A lot of Strangler Lewis' matches were legit, and probably even into the sixties, some of the matches between Gagne and Kiniski were real. Also, there is footage in the 80s of Brusier Brody whipping Lex Lugar's ass in a steel cage. Luger climbs out and flees when he was supposed to win. Anyway, fake wrestling grew out of the carnival tradition where they would tour with a wrestling troop. They would have their basic wrestler who were really just strong men, their shooters who were good, and their hookers who knew MMA style submission. The strong men would job to the shooters, and the shooters would challenge the audience. Audience members would come out and get their asses handed to them, but occasionally, there would be someone who would win. That is when they would bring in the hooker to break his leg or arm. So wrestling AWLAYS, even from the earliest days, had a fake element. According to lore, it was mostly real at the top end until Stranger Lewis. He was so good, that no one would pay to see his matches. It was like Tyson knocking a guy out in seconds. Also, during the depression, money was tight. So he and his two promoting partners, Tootz Mondt, and I can't remember the other guy, got the idea that he should throw some matches to create drama. Since the were the promoters, he could get a rematch and get it right back. It went over so well, that they started bringing in impressive looking footballers and asking their real guys to job to them to build up bigger than life matches. Famously, Stanislas Zbysko refused and broke somebody's leg. But it just became a thing that wrestling would forever be less and less real. Other versons of the story have it becoming a farce much earlier, under Frank Gotch. I think most agree that there were some shoot matches at least until the early sixties, although they were few and far between, involving real athletes like Gagne, Kiniski, Bob Geigal, Lou Thez, Jack Brisco, the Funks, etc. I am not sure if any of Bruno's matches were real, but he was freakishly strong for his day (some sources saying he set the bench-press record), a good amateur wrestler who never had sponsoring to continue with it, and a good enough boxer that he famously sparred Sonny Liston, so he could bring the pain! Since the promoters were against him at one point, I would not be at all surprised if he put the damage on a few times. POST SCRIPT: Just remembered...Billy Robinson was maybe the greatest shoot wrestler of the 70's, and was a real dick who used to **** guys up, famously dislocating the hip of the Iron Sheik, who was himself a great shoot wrestler. There are a couple of revenge stories. Dr. David Shultz, the guy who slapped John Stossel and went on to become a real-life bounty hunter, punched Robinson's lights out in the middle of a match, and Peter Maivia, the Rock's grandfather, really lost it and tried to dig his eye out.
