Episode 110 - Million Dollar Bash

The Great American Bash issue from Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

We’re happy to welcome back Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) for another marathon pod. The main focus of the episode is the first Great American Bash in July 1985. We go over the show match-by-match, what was going on for each person at the time going into the show and where things were going after the show on the road to Starrcade 1985. We also talk about the other JCP show that night in Columbus, Georgia. There’s also discussion of both the magazine coverage of the show and the video tape, put out in conjunction with Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

From there, it’s a free for all, as we talk about tape trading, not only in wrestling but also hockey fights and old television shows, running shows in high school gyms and armories, which led to a discussion of the 1993 film Blue Chips, hockey road trips, the usual discussion of 1980s wrestling TV in the Baltimore/Washington area and much more.

As with most people these days, you can’t talk this long without some coughing fits. We tried to edit them out, but may have missed some, so please accept our apologies.

Also, our new podcast The Plot, done with When It Was Cool, now has two episodes:. The first is about the Mission Impossible TV show and the second is about the heist comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. You can find it in this podcast feed or over at the When It Was Cool Website. .

Thanks for listening.

Episode 108 - Son of a Gypsy

Before he was Handsome Jimmy or the Boogie Woogie Man, he was Big John Vallen.

We have a very special show and a very special guest today. It’s our first on-location recording and it’s a big one. While going through Southwestern Virginia, I was able to stop and have a conversation with the legendary Hall of Famer, the Boogie Woogie Man, Handsome Jimmy Valiant.. We sat down ringside at Boogie’s Wrestling Camp to have a chat about a lifetime in the wrestling business. We couldn’t get to everything in his almost six decades career , but we talked about his early years in the business, who gave him the Jimmy Valiant name, working for Vince Senior in the WWWF, Dick the Bruiser in Indianapolis, his many years in both Memphis and the Carolinas and more. We also talk about his singing career and the three singles he recorded, including at the legendary Sun Records. There’s plenty more but that’s a sampling of our chat. Thanks again to Jimmy for his hospitality. And if you’re in the area, make sure to come to Boogie’s Wrestling Camp on Sunady afternoon June 5th for the annual Valiant Cup Battle Royal. You can get more info at Jimmy’s website. And thanks for friend of the show Beau James for helping line up the interview.

Note: we recorded this on my phone so the sound quality is not as great as usual. Also, about halfway through the interview, Jimmy starts calling me Chris. I wasn’t going to stop Handsome in the middle of story to correct him, so you just go with the flow. Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy the show

The Charlie Brown mask, made by the Great Kabuki.

Episode 103 - Blood Will Have Blood

Ric Flair vs Ted DiBiase, 1985 Mid-South TV. Thanks to Dick Murdoch, one of the best angles in wrestling history. It’s also one of the 100 Greatest Bloody Matches in Way of the Blade by Phil Schneider

We’re joined on the podcast by Phil Schneider (@philschneider) from DVDVR and Segunda Caida to discuss his new book, Way of the Blade: 100 of the greatest bloody matches in wrestling history.

We talk about how he came to write the book and some of the nuts and bolts behind it: how did he pick the matches to include and not include, wanting a wide geographical and historical spread without overloading one particular time and place and such. We talk about a good number of the matches in the book and many of the names you would expect in this type of project; Ric Flair, Terry Funk, Jerry Lawler, Abdullah the Butcher, the Great Muta and many more. We also talk about the companion podcast to the book, where Phil has had both wrestling writers and well as wrestlers themselves on discuss matched from the book, including Steve Keirn and Dustin Rhodes.

There’s also chat about the differences between watching wrestling live versus on tape or television, the greatness of Eddie Kingston, Negro Casas and Black Terry and all that French Catch Wrestling that Phil and his crew watch on Segunda Caida.

You can find Way of the Blade in print and digital at your favorite bookseller and the Way of the Blade podcast where you get your shows.

Episode Eighty-Nine - The Force of July

The 1986 Great American Bash program cover

We look back at a special wrestling event that took place 36 years ago as we write this, the first date on the 1986 Great American Bash tour, held on July 1, 1986 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. The Winter Palace host was at the shot and has a couple guests to look back at the show.

First up is one of the hardest working man in the podcast business, Kris Zellner (@kriszellner), co host of Between the Sheets (@BTSheetspod) , Exile on Badstreet, Cover 2 Cover and more. We go over the card, match-by-match and talk about some of the infamous stories that happened backstage. We also talk about the 1986 Bash tour as a whole, where it was successful and where it was not. We also talk about a bunch of other subjects including the logistics of watching wrestling in the 1980s, the days of tape trading, how Kris managed to find the time to do all those shows and some recommendations of classic matches to watch online.

(52:18) Also on the show is Mark’s high school friend Jim, who, to protect his real identity, we will call Jim K. Fabe. Jim and Mark were impressionable 16-year old wrestling fans who attended that Bash show in Philadelphia. We talk about what we remember about the show live, other wrestling shows we attended back in the 1980s, favorites then vs favorites and more. We also talk about the current problem in popular culture of separating the art from the artist, centering about Jim’s teenage fandom for Jimmy Snuka and reconciling that with what we know about the death of Nancy Argentino. That branches out into the same problems effecting creators in film and tv, sports, comics and more. It was Jim’s first podcast appearance and we think he did a bang up job talking a trip down memory lane.

Check the show notes below for The Final Best of 7 match between Magnum TA and Nikita Koloff for the Unites States Title from JCP TV and Jim Cornette’s podcast where he discusses the Great American Basn tours.

Episode Eighty-Four - Splendid Isolation Number Three

They Buried The Cowboy Under the Russian Flag!

We’re back with an extra-special edition of the new Splendid Isolation podcast series, as we welcome back Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) from Wrestling Observer Live and the Mid Atlantic Championship Podcast (@midatlanticpod).

We kick if off with a long chat about Bill Watts and the UWF, discussing how hot the promotion began after the name change from Mid-South Wrestling and its expansion outside its home region into places like Baltimore, where young Mike and slightly older Mark watched it in the spring of 1986. We reminisce about the initial title switches, promoting the Jim Crockett Sr Memorial Cup and one of the greatest angles of all-time, one so good we named a spin-off magazine after it: Eddie Gilbert and the Russians burying Watts under the USSR flag. We bracket that with the UWF TV show after the promotion was bought by JCP and just how quickly the show changed.

One of the other big topics covered is Mike’s new Mid-Atlantic Championshop Podcast, which he co-hosts with Roman Gomez. We talk about how the show started, why they chose 1982 as a starting point, some of the main players in the territory at the time and plenty of other JCP topics, including the Final Conflict show in 1983 and play WHAT IF? with various wrestlers (What if Gino had come in 1986? What if Buddy Landell had shown up for that TV taping?).

There’s plenty of other chat for the rest of the podcast, not limited to: the state of the territories by the mid 1980s, the hidden gem that was Southeastern Wrestling, the greatness of Ron Fuller’s Studcast podcast, classic 1980s TV and a brief chat at the end about sports uniforms.

Mike is always a great guest, so big thanks for him for giving so much of his time. We have more shows planned for the future, branching out in topics, so keep an eye out for them. Thanks for listening.

Episode Seventy-Nine - Handsome

Did anyone put more bounties on their opponents than Harley?

We welcome back Wrestling Observer Live’s Mike Sempervive (@sempervive) to the pod, to discuss the life and times of former NWA champion Harley Race, who passed away on August 1 at the age of 76. We discuss the amazing obstacles Harley overcame to become one of the most admired and respected wrestlers on the modern era. We also look at some of his career highlights, opponents and angles. In addition to the appreciation of Handsome Harley, we chat about wrestling history, the greatness of the @RonFullerWelch podcast, the place of the Welch/Fuller dynasty in wrestling history, Jim Barnett, Jerry Jarrett, Ron Wright, Les Thatcher, the Knoxville 5 tape, the old school Wrestling Observer newsletter, watching wrestling in the pre-cable era and much more. An extra-sized show this episode, fitting to discuss the greatest wrestler on god’s green earth.