KENTUCKY FRIED RASSLIN'

September 19, 2002
By Scott Bowden

Unforgiven

There are moments in one's childhood that stay with you for years, even though in hindsight they seem so trivial, so insignificant. And believe me, as I've written this column the past two months, I've been amazed that I remember so much about the wrestlers I lived and died with every Saturday morning while growing up in Memphis. (And I'm sure some of you young job-boy marks perhaps wish I didn't have such a good memory.)

Combined with my reading/collecting comic books, I suppose the numerous hours I spent watching wrestling made me a real geek-boy. (Some, including ex-girlfriends, would argue that not much has changed.) Those things, and my natural preference to spend time alone -- away from friends and other reminders of reality -- to deliver piledrivers to my sister's stuffed animals -- and occasionally to my sister when she objected -- didn't make me the most popular guy at school either. The first time I saw Tim Burton's short film, VINCENT, an over-the-top exaggeration of the director's childhood, I nearly cried. I guess it's no surprise that Burton apparently was a twisted kid who liked to spend way too much time alone in his room dreaming up worlds, while a parent constantly questioned why he didn't play with the other kids in the neighborhood. Perhaps more appropriately, a similar scene in the Andy Kaufman biopic MAN ON THE MOON had a similar sentimental effect.

Even my lone interest outside of masked characters like Spider-Man and Mr. Wrestling II (bet that's the first time those two have been linked in a sentence) was a blend of comic books and wrestling ... combined with rock & roll and an incredible amount of makeup. (And no, I'm not talking Cyndi Lauper.) The first time I saw the band KISS, I was blown away: These guys combined the look of superheroes with the showmanship of wrestling ... AND they rocked. I was hooked -- despite my mom's claims that KISS was an acronym for Knights in Satan's Service. (Actually, that probably only made me love them more.) When Hanna-Barbera actually gave the foursome super powers in the made-for-TV movie KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM, I became an even bigger fan. That is, until the album DYNASTY -- which featured an ill-advised move into disco a la Glen Gilbertti (WCW's Disco Inferno).

NO QUESTION ABOUT IT: Gordon Solie, whose serious tone complemented the wild action of Ted Turner's rasslin' program on WTBS, often referred to wrestling as "human chess at its finest."

When cable TV debuted in my neighborhood in late 1982, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced forehead. Little did I realize that this invention, which brought tits and slashed throats -- not to mention Gordon Solie -- to my house, would also prove to be a harbinger of Dr. Death for the "the sport" that I loved. Or at the very least, over the years it would eat away -- like George "the Animal" Steele going through turnbuckle padding on the USA Network -- at the reasons why I loved wrestling in the first place.

As a 12-year-old, I was delighted to find Ted Turner's rasslin' on WTBS -- which for some strange reason started five minutes after the hour -- on channel 17, enabling me to keep up with local-boy-done-good Tommy "Wildfire" Rich, who had become the hottest babyface in the country, thanks to an ever-increasing audience nationwide. I finally got to see NWA World champ Ric Flair style and profile, though unfortunately at the time, he was locked in a heated feud with Bad, Bad Leroy Brown -- an angle that started over the Nature Boy's inability to beat the would-be Jim Croce character in an arm-wrestling match. (But with his Walter Cronkite-like delivery, announcer Solie made it all seem logical.) Although it came off like a watered-down version of Memphis wrestling, Turner's Southern-fried WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING (formerly GEORGIA CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING) gave a geek-boy something to look forward to on late Saturday afternoons as the Memphis crew was heading from the WMC-TV Studios to Nashville for cards later that night.

A FLAIR FOR JOURNALISM: The Apter mags covered the Tommy Rich vs. Ric Flair feud, which captivated an audience of new cable-TV subscribers via Ted Turner's SuperStation.

A mark for the Apter mags (INSIDE WRESTLING, THE WRESTLER, PRO WRESTLING ILLUSTRATED, etc.), I had become fascinated over the years with grapplers I had never seen. After all, according to the often-fictionalized accounts by journalists like Apter, Craig Peters, Dan Shocket, Eddie Ellner, old scribe "Matt Brock" (Ellner) and "Liz Hunter" (Ellner), a guy like WW(F)E champ Bob Backlund -- a rare babyface World champ -- was just about the best in the business. And Backlund was even more special because he turned away huge monsters like Big John Studd, King King Mosca and Killer Khan without being a rulebreaker (Apter term for heel).

IT'S HOWDY DOODY TIME: The All-American Boob (Backlund) defeats Superstar Graham for the WWF title. With the exception of a little-known title loss to Antonio Inoki in Japan, Backlund's first reign lasted more than five years.

I recall the first time I saw the pale, red-haired Backlund, in the waning stages of his All-American Boy gimmick. (How this got over in New York City, I have no idea.) While at one time he looked like the legit, former collegiate stud that he was, Backlund was now working in red, amateur-style tights, and sporting a silly crewcut -- he looked like an adult, bizarro version of Opie Taylor. On this night, Howdy Doody was defending the prized WWF gold against Samoan Afa, a tag-team wrestler who was clearly unranked in the Official Ratings, according to my latest Apter mag. (SIDENOTE: A personal highlight of my life is when inexplicably I wound up in Apter's bullshit ratings for the USWA title in 1994 -- No. 8, six spots down from the WWF's Undertaker and one spot ahead of Reggie B. Fine.) As he bumbled his way through the match, which included a weak-looking Backlund piledriver that wouldn't have fazed Kaufman, the WWF champ came off more like the All-American Pussy. I remember thinking that local legend Jerry Lawler would murder this guy. Hmmm ... perhaps Shocket, the Apter heel columnist, was right: Backlund was paying off the referees to save his skin.

With me watching on USA's ALL-AMERICAN WRESTLING, Backlund finally dropped the title to the Iron Sheik in December 1983, after a reign of nearly six years -- unfathomable by today's fans. (Truth be told, after seeing Backlund work, it's hard for me to fathom.) The old guard was changing. Back when Vince Jr. remembered that your new babyface champ has to be the antithesis of your previous one, the new owner of his ailing, near-death father's company started planning in October or November 1983 to put a new champ -- Hulk Hogan -- in place that would not only capture the imagination of the fans in the Northeast, but also in traditional AWA and NWA strongholds like Chicago, St. Paul, Houston, St. Louis ... and Atlanta, Turner's backyard.

Like Ole Anderson, booker/part owner of WCW in '83 -'84, Vince Jr. realized that cable TV was the key to national expansion ... no matter the longtime tacit understanding that you didn't promote in another established territory.

After Hogan appeared on WWF TV for the first time in more than three years in January 1984, he was quickly named the number-one contender to the Iranian heel's championship after Backlund was "injured" and unable to compete in the rematch at Madison Square Garden. Though frustrated that this completely went against Apter-ratings logic, I cheered when Hogan leg-dropped his way to the WWF title in a little more than five minutes on January 23, 1984. I hadn't been so excited since Lawler had apparently beaten Nick Bockwinkle to win the AWA World title in Memphis in 1982, a decision that was later "overturned."

Little did I realize that Black Saturday was about six months away.

BLACK SATURDAY

Saturday, July 14, 1984, started off just like any other for me. That morning I watched guys like Lawler, Jimmy Hart, Austin Idol, Stagger Lee (Koko Ware using the name of the song and the infamous Junkyard Dog alter ego), Harley Davidson (the WWF's future Hillbilly Jim), King Kong Bundy, Rick Rude and Randy Savage on Memphis TV, and arranged my day so I'd be home just in time for Turner's WCW. At 5:05 Central Time, my jaw caved like Bob Armstrong's after a pseudo attack by the loaded-gloved Ted DiBiase: Flair, Brad Armstrong, the Road Warriors, Ronnie Garvin, Pez Whatley -- even Solie -- were gone. In their place stood Hogan and other guys who had abandoned the AWA and NWA as part of Jr.'s vision: Rick Steamboat, Paul Orndorff, Roddy Piper and David Shultz. After a purchasing a majority of WCW stock from Jack and Jerry Brisco, who, along with other area promoters had become disenchanted with Anderson's plans, General McMahon was invading. Wrestling, as I knew it at least, would never be the same.

Since that time, I've seen all traditional wrestling territories die. I've seen the change to sports entertainment, which brought a generation of fans who can't suspend disbelief, even for a moment, because hey, even the boys admit it's all fake. I suppose it's all part of the inevitable evolution of the business. When Vince Jr. first publicly admitted that the action was all a work to avoid paying a "sports" tax, he claimed it was time to stop insulting the fans' intelligence. Well, if that cause is so paramount to Vince, I wish he'd explain last Monday's RAW.

Don't get me wrong: I've loved Vince's flashes of brilliance, especially when his product became more hardcore in the '90s in an attempt to capitalize on the successful ECW/Memphis-like formula and regain his audience, who had long grown tired of his family circus.

"Mean Mark Callous" to The Undertaker. Bret Hart's and Shawn Michaels' pushes as singles stars. "Stunning" Steve Austin to "Stone Cold." Flex Kavana to The Rock. Even Vince's own push as the heel corporate owner against the blue-collar Austin. Yes, over the years, I've been a mark like everybody else.

But then I see stuff like Hot Lesbian Action. I see two World champions on separate programs, in one swoop effectively killing the credibility of the strap, Brock Lesnar's push and the momentum the company had after an incredible SUMMERSLAM PPV effort. Most disheartening, I notice crowds who are dead except for entrance music, stupid catchphrases, puppies and, sometimes, finishes. And then I think about Black Saturday and how the business used to be. I think about how fans used to mark out for a suplex -- when Lawler applied the move to NWA champ Brisco during a bout in the '70s, the crowd in Memphis jumped to their feet. I recall how marks used to scream bloody murder when a heel attacked a babyface, or used a chain to win a match. I'm only 31, but I feel bitterness exceeded only by guys like Verne Gagne, Bruno Sammartino and Tom Zenk.

Thing is, I want to like the WWE's product. If only Vince would let me.

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