Back in 1998, Mick Foley stopped by Gallagher on TSN. It is very Canadian and I love it. The Mickster stops by as WWF Champion to answer some questions and have a good time. He even talks about Halftime Heat!
I’ve been out of the loop for a while. Do fun shows like this still exist or is it all just sports clowns and blowhards yelling at each other?
Here’s a rare treat: A young Kurt Angle cutting a “hot” promo on Steve Bradley. How hot is it? It’s so hot, he’s engulfed in flames!
Angle has credited Bradley with helping him get to WWE, so it’s very cool to see something from his early days when they worked together in Memphis. Even if he’s a little too “fired” up for his own good. Seems like this program had a lot of heat, if you know what I mean.
There’s been endless debate on what AEW can do to turn their fortunes around, but I have the answer. I know a sure-fire way to increase live attendance, boost ratings, and make millions in merch: more Maki Itoh!
The clip of her singing her bop of a theme song while everyone else wrestles always makes me laugh. And you know what? We could use a lot more of that. If Maki Itoh came out to sing her theme during a Rampage main event or during a Timeless Toni Storm promo, it would be a license to print money.
Don’t believe me? Just listen to The Fired Idol belt out the theme for one of extremely popular anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cruel Angel’s Thesis. I love all the other wrestlers, like fellow sometimes AEW-er Yuka Sakazaki, getting into it as well. I’m telling you, license to print money.
Check out this commercial for the very first Wrestlemania on video cassette. It’s awesome! Jesse “The Body” Ventura rattles off all the wrestling stars, Muhammad Ali, and Cyndi Lauper, all while fast-paced wrestling action appears on screen. It’s simple, effective, and for only $39.95, it’s a steal.
Ending the commercial with an atomic drop is certainly an interesting choice, though.
Over its long history, the NWA slowly shrunk, splintering out into different loosely-affiliated promotions in the United States. One such independent promotion is NWA Mountain State.
Now, I can’t say I know much about this company, but if this promotional commercial is any indication, it is a rich and colorful promotion. They even have The Maestro on their roster!
Who is your favorite? For me, it’s a tossup between the Bunkhouse Boys, Ricky Shane’s mustache, and Karl.
Oh, Karl. Your gleeful laugh is so delightful.
Recently, WWE received the coveted Red Diamond award from Youtube for passing over 100 million subscribers. They are the 10th channel to receive the award and, since I am old and have no idea who most of the other channels are, that’s an extra impressive milestone. Plus, it’s a great resource for this site and column.
It did give me the idea to go to their channel and look up some of the earliest stuff they posted. Before Youtube was an internet powerhouse that can be watched on just about any electronic device, companies were trying to figure out this new-fangled video website dealie. Sometimes things worked, but a lot of times they were just throwing stuff out there without much thought or care.
In this, one of their earliest uploads, we have a guy, bathed in a sickly greenish-yellowish lighting, frantically yelling at us about WWE pay-per-views in what sounds like an empty garage. Does that make you want to watch WWE? Or does it make you want to find out what’s going on with Pepe Silvia?