ROH..what took me so long?

NOW...I have to admit to being incredibly static in my wrestling veiwing up until about 2002...it was all old school aussie, WWF/E, ECW, WCW and LUCHA with an occasional foray into japan...then along came wrestling forums and the discovery of other company's, sure i'd heard of these other company's,  I'd just never got of my arse long enough to get hold any of their product

Funnily enough, you know what got me into ROH..go on, guess...give up ??....TNA, amazing aint it, friggin TNA, it was just after they got the 6 sided ring that I started to amass the contents of my TNA dvd shelf, and whilst watching, I saw some guys i'd only vaguely heard of...Austin Aries, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Chris Daniels, Roderick Strong, Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley...I thought to myself, they must have a body of work on dvd somewhere, so i asked guys on various forums and got told to grab some RoH dvd's...so off to the cyber shopping centre I went...and grabbed hold of the following....,UNIFIED, DRAGONGATE CHALLENGE, ARENA WARFARE, and i saw all the guys I knew plus a few more, American Dragon, Nigel McGuiness, C.M Punk, Colt Cabana, Jimmy Rave, Low Ki and Homicide to name a few

Over the last 3 years my Roh collection has exploded,  stacks of PPV's, a mountain of tv discs and a whole slew of talent added to my favourite wrestler list, whats that ?..who ?...

For starters there is "Dem Boys" The Brisco Brothers, who i'm a total mark for I must say, Delerious, Kenny Omega, Necro Butcher, Grizzly Redwood, Rascke Brown, Michael Elgin who recently power bombed two guys at once on TV ( beat that Cena), Rhett Titus, Kenny King, Tomasso Chiampa, Kevin Steen, El Generico, Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards....not a bad list huh?

The booking at Roh is pretty damn good too, probably the best (and longest) angle that current booker, Delerious, hade a hand in, was the year long fued between Kevin Steen and El Generico, it had matches at PPV's and multiple gimmick matches on TV....although its been said that Delerious just let Steen and Generico run the thing with just a little help from him...

Also there is one thing about RoH I like, they give young guys a fighting chance to get over, for example The Young Bucks, they went to TNA and got royally stuffed around, heel one week, face the next, split up, put back together...that don't happen at RoH, you get a fair chance to get your act over, highly refreshing I must say.

Of Course, Vince (and TNA) have spotted talent and offered them "opportunty's" ( that's McMahon speak for we don't actually have anything for you, but hiring you may f**k up the ratings of the company you were working at before)

A few blokes have been snapped up by WWE and TNA...these blokes actually

TYLER BLACK - WWE...now Seth Rollins, getting squished in FCW
CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI - WWE, now Antonio Resaro, also in FCW
CHRIS HERO - WWE - failed a testosterone test, sacked, recently came back to RoH
BRYAN DANIELSON - WWE - now Daniel Bryant, after much shit, got the heavyweight title
C.M PUNK - WWE, wouldn't let them change his name, has won numerous titles
SAMOA JOE - TNA - started out great back in 05, has now stalled, needs to haul arse
AJ STYLES - TNA..we all know how well AJ has done for himself
AUSTIN ARIES - TNA - second run, X division champ


Anyway, I just watched FINAL BATTLE  2011, and got to see Dem Boys beat The World's greatest tag team for the straps, that makes the Brisco's 7 time champs, also the return of Kevin Steen and a possible re-ignition of the fued with Generico....gonna be a good year I reckon at RoH...


SEEYA

SIDE BAR .....I'm going to start calling Vince McMahon fkn Virgil McNamara,see how he likes getting his name changed....

CHEAP HEAT, SOUTH OF THE BORDER

If there is one thing I hate in pro wrestling, and no i won't call it "sports fkn entertainment" , I don't care what Vince says, ...it's cheap heat....a description I use is this -  when a wrestler honestly can't be stuffed to work hard for a crowd reaction OR the booker cant be stuffed to think of anything clever and tells the boys to wing it

 Some examples that come to mind and i'll use some aussie examples i've seen,  is a wrestler who was the AWF champ in the recent past, who in my opinion, couldn't be stuffed cause it wasn't their home base show, told a lady in the audience to "get back in the kitchen"...please, what is this the fkn 70's ...you lazy bastard, another one was a PWA guy I saw at a Campbelltown Cube show, who obviously was feeling a bit "can't be bothered" calling people fat, lazy slobs unlike himself on his way to the ring....cheap heat , in my opinion anyway

 NOW to something, that as a lucha aficianado has got me more than slightly fkn annoyed....anyone who knows the premise behind lucha knows that the mask is (alledgedly) sacred and the only time you lost the mask was the right way...in a mascara y mascara match, sorta like what the WWE did recently with Sin Cara Azure and Sin Cara Negro, although the storyline usually goes wayyyyy longer than what the E did with the Sin Cara's....although there was a mask stealing by Hunico on Sin Cara on a Smackdown just prior to the mask v mask match....of course, there has always been mask destruction, but it was a rare occurence...some guys used to do it on purpose, I know when Ricki Chosu was booked against a luchador in Japan, he felt it a given that he should destroy the mask, because he didn't consider them wrestlers( no seriously) and did so with out stopping until Alberto Del Rio's dad, Dos Caras  beat the shit out of Chosu in a shoot at a Budokhan show, needless to say the ripping suddenly stopped.

SO anyway, I watch a fair bit of Lucha, mostly CMLL and AAA,  and in the last, say, 2 years, I've noticed that a real crappy habit has been exploded into plague proportion's...MASK RIPPING ....

 
  The worst example's I'd seen up til recently was Mistico (Sin cara) and Volador Jnr, they started the feud after the 2010 incredible tag tournament, you know where one face (tecnico) and one heel (rudo) get teamed together for the tournament... Mistico(tecnico) had been teaming with Averno (rudo) and Mistico eventually turned rudo himself...Volador took umbrage apparently and him and Mistico spent the next while ripping, stealing and yanking off each others masks,hell,  they even swapped philosophy's...and it didn't end up in anyone losing their masks, it was mask vandalism for the sake of a cheap pop only.

 and it don't stop there, Dr Wagner and La Parka mangled masks hand over fist and CMLL champ Ultimo Guerrero has ripped more masks recently than i've ever seen him do, mind you he has had his hood ripped a few times too, the most memorable was when he went against Atlantis, their faces were barely covered less than 1/2 way into the match

The most violent mask ripping i've seen in recent times was at most recent big show of the year for AAA, Triplemania in the "Battle for the Name" match between LA Park and La Parka, 38 minutes of  blood, run-in's and wanton mask destruction...it was a cross between ECW and the nWo, there was that many people in the ring attacking L.A Park and de-masking him...exciting , yes..needed..NO

Like I said it's fkn lazy by the bookers and wrestlers, I've heard the argument that its because the modern generation don't care unless something shocking happens, well, I can sorta accept that...BUT...the mask ripping appears in nearly every fkn match nowadays...its like smashing through tables, everyone popped when Sabu did it first, then all of a sudden every promotion on the planet had table smashing as a regular part of the show, same thing with the mask's, people were shocked the first time, then all of a sudden, the promotion needs its own mask makers backstage to repair the nights cheap heat getter's...it flat out sucks !!

Santo would be rolling in his grave

SEEYA

AHHH...THE GOOD OLD DAYS

THEY were the legends who thrilled me and my fellow grappling fans way back when when TV only had two colours ...BLACK & WHITE

Stars such as Mario Milano, King Curtis, Brute Bernard, Bulldog Brower, Spiros Arion, Killer Kowalski and the sinister Tojo Brothers- who threw salt in Mark Lewins eyes on national tv and laughed while Mark trashed the set.

And let's not forget our homegrown heroes Ron Miller, Larry O'Dea and George Barnes, who matched up to the visiting yanks talent more than equally....For thousands of people, for many a year,  World Championship Wrestling was the real deal.

Not only at my place but right across the east coast, family', religiously tuned into World Championship Wrestling, an institution on TCN 9 at midday on Saturdays and Sundays

The company  did three TV shows a week and 300 live shows a year - which would average 15,000 punters a week at Festival Halls in Melbourne and Brisbane and initially The Sydney Stadium , then onto the Hordern Pavilion, where Fox Studio's now stands.

The guys would get 1000 people at the airport to meet them when they got into town for that nights show, the talent stayed at all the big hotels of the day and more often than not upgraded by the airlines, as an example one trip to Perth saw Lewin, Curtis , Miller and company get mobbed by up to , some say, 6,000

The big years for the WCW program were from 1964 to 1978 and the reasons it was so successful were the weekly TV show, the different nationalities, the characters and those fantastic promo's by Bulldog Brower, Ox Baker, Steve Rackman, Gary hart and Big Bad John...BUT, the best promo in the business then and I think he would still hold up today was King Curtis, who made a huge impact whenever he had control of the mic, Curtis was  the grand master of the ear shattering promo, In those days he was absolutely incredible. and like a real pro,  none of his promo's were written for him, I dont know where he came up with the stuff, it was just phenomenal.

Also.. local hero's ranks, were among others, Johnny Gray, Kevin Martin, Roy Heffernan...AND THEN..there was Mario Milano, the master of the abdominal stretch, he came to Australia in 1966 from Brazil and never left, after leaving the ring, Mario had a number of businesses including a pizza shop and travel agency and lives in retirement in Melbourne with the occasional stint as "Commisioner" for promotions around Melbourne..HELL..he could still run for mayor and win

The recently departed Killer Karl Kox, who had gained infamy by dropping commentator Jack Little on his head during an episode of WCW, a wrestling story that made main stream news at the time I might add,  became a prison warden after he was done "brainbusting " other wrestlers..its been said that one day an inmate reminisced how he used to watch Kox all the time, Kox replied  "Well, thats strange, now I watch you all time .

Recently  Ronnie Miller revived a lot of peoples memories of the halcyon days with a triple DVD release called Ruff Tuff & Real, which provides an amazing, historical, flashback into what really was a phenomenon in Australian's live's.

The DVD includes footage of the time Milano grew a moustache and turned heel on his tag partner Tony Puglisi and walked off with Gary hart while Kox and The Spoiler put Puglisi through an arse kicking ad a 1/2, best part was when longtime ref and former champion wrestler himself "Wallaby" Bob McMaster suggesting he may have been hypnotised or mesmerised by the Playboy

And what about those moves  - the sleeper hold (Mark Lewin), the brain buster (Killer Karl Kox), the coconut butt (Bobo Brazil) and the Indian death lock (Chief Billy White Wolf).

Commentator Jack Little - wrestling's version of Ray Warren- would often warn the audience that a competitor had a "foreign object down his trunks" and " thats all there is, there isnt anymore"

Then there were also my personal favourites,  the mysterious masked wrestlers, who, without fail hailed from "parts unknown". The Spoiler, The Masked Medics, The Assassins among others

Miller and his long-time tag team and business partner O'Dea started their wrestling careers at a little gym near Wentworth Park Dog Track, they did all the hard yards in the stadiums and smaller shows, and when they came back from a successful stint working for Eddie Graham in Florida, in 1973 they purchased WCW...But WCW it wasn't to last forever and it took a wrestling hating program director and  World Series Cricket - which took its regular Saturday / Sunday time-slot - to spell the end for televised wrestling

WHERE ARE THEY NOW:...well, what i could find anyway

Ron Miller: Retired and living in Tweed Heads

King Curtis: deceased

Mark Lewin: Living in the US and is married to a Tahitian princess

George Barnes: Ran successful trucking business

Spiros Ario: Retired and living in Greece

Ox Baker: Farmer, New York state

Killer Karl Kox: deceased

Professor Tanaka: deceased

Brute Bernard: Died playing Russian roulette in a bar

Skull Murphy: Committed suicide after a failed romance

Bruiser Brody: Stabbed to death in a dressing room in Puerto Rico. Nobody saw a thing.

Big Bad John: Fatally shot in Tennessee bar

Abdullah the Butcher: Runs a restaurant in Carolina and was recently inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame

Bill Dundee - went to the states and became a succesful booker in Memphis, Watts UWF and WCW

and my favorite jobber, Jan Jansen: now in the fitness industry on the South Coast of NSW

THE DAY EL SANTO HOOKED ME

G'day,

have I mentioned that i'm a complete Lucha nut??...no..well, I think I'll tell you the why for's and how comes of my becoming one

Like ive said before, me and the occasional "big" wrestling events seem to keep bumping into each other, seeing Goldberg wallop Hollywood for starters at the georgia dome was one...BUT....the one that really grabbed hold of me was once again a complete f'n fluke and this is what happened....

late january to March 1984 me and a couple of mates were in L.A doing the the Strip seeing bands we had heard about in Circus and Hit parader, you know, Ratt, Motley Quiet Riot, London, Dokken and WASP...etc etc, drinking , laughing,  having a tops time as was my usual state of being at that point in history.....now me and gazza were and had been wrestling fans since memory began...so finding a comic shop that had actual up to date PWI's was a hoot and a half indeed...I came across a copy of Box Y Lucha mag, had a look through and recognised Mil Mascaras and his brother Dos but that was about it, so, i walked up to the counter and picked the blokes brain about this lucha libre stuff, he politely informed us  that outside of soccer, it sold more tickets per week than anything and if we got a chance to go see some, we should.

Back at the hotel, we decided to go see some lucha, this meant we had to haul arse across the border at San Diego...hunted down one of the staff who was as he put it a "bean eater", always good when people can laught at themselves, who we had formed some sort of rapore with, he set us up to cross the border with his mom and dad who visiting and were going home to Tampico on the coast just north east of Mexico City...double bonus, we got there unscathed and they got home for virtually nothing cause we wouldnt let them pay for nothing..HAHAHA....we got to there house and they insisted we stay the night and have a "welcome to mexico" party with the rellies..why not...this was the first and last time i drank "proper" tequila, FARK MOI, anyway their son in law was in the travel industryand while in  most cases in mexico this meant he sold train tickets, this bloke booked for a travel agent, he got us a hotel right dead smack in the middle of MC at a very reasonable rate, well we was getting 8,000 pesos to the dollar so it wasnt that big a fiscal hardship ( i'm kidding about the rate, but it was pretty fn good), he insisted on driving us into MC cause he said us gringos would get ripped off rotten probably, and who am i to argue with local knowledge....

We got into MC and hooked up with one of his workmates from the agaency they both worked for, this bloke was gonna be our guide for the week and we monetarily compensated him I can assure you (about a months wage if i decipher my scratchings properly), thats the thing about Mexico, they open a door for you and they stick there hand out, no biggie really our spare change was pretty good to them....NOW...heres where it gets weird.

we went down the hotel bar to have a couple of coldies and when we went back to the room, old mate, umm, Perlios, was almost beside himself, i thought someone had carked it, fuckin how right was I...the great man of Lucha Libre and all round tops chap by all accounts..."el Enmascarado de Plata"  El santo had died from a heart attack

and this deadset gutted the country, it was phenomenal, picture if you can a top AFL or League player dying and getting Elvis or Michael Jackson level crowds to the funeral...we had about 2 days till the funeral and subsequently all Lucha show were canned in honor of the passing, perlios pulled some strings and got a vhs and some tapes and we sat around the hotel room for a couple of days with Perlios doing commentary in Spanglish, piss f'n funny indeed.....ANYWAY... the morning of the funeral we took our place on our balcony from about 9.00 am they were already 15 deep on the footpath, Perlios invited a couple of mates and chica's up to the room, they were most stoked and were top folk, but when the big white limo's came into view and i'm talking about 100, the crowd on mass went silent...then after about 10 seconds the chant "SANTO, SANTO, SANTO" erupted and didnt stop until the cortage had passed...we watched with the required reverance whilst joing in with the santo chants...we saw some luchadores on tv getting interviewed about santo, these included Blu Demon Snr, Sicodelico, Tineblas and Rayo De Jalisco...

didnt understand a word but they werent bagging him, that much i knew....went to a few shows after the joint had calmed down, and thus my Insane Luchafandom began...all because a movie star in a silver mask went toes up while i was in town