Episode 131 - Old Lady McDuffie

The One Man Gang runs Jim Duggan into the ringpost during the UWF Title Tournament in May 1986.

We are happy to welcome back Greg Klein (@jydbook) to the pod for another deep dive involving Mid-South Wrestling, only this time it’s the newly renamed Universal Wrestling Federation and the May 30, 1986 UWF Title Tournament held in the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas.

We talk about how we found out about the results originally, watching the UWF TV show in Baltimore. Although Greg spend part of the year in Houston, he wasn’t there for this event.

The entire card and all the matches get discussed, even the ones where we don’t have film. We discuss some of the booking choices and match-ups and who we might have been wanting to back when it happened in 1986.

There’s lots of other stuff in this marathon episode, including other eras of Mid-South, when was the high point of the UWF and we talk about the one time World Class ran Houston. Also, anti-star rating filibustering, Morris Sigel’s Hall of Fame credentials, underrated wrestlers and so much more.

It’s always a great show when Greg is on. If you’re in upstate New York, check out the Cooperstown Christmas concert they are putting on as a fund-raiser to make the movie of the same name.

Episode 127 - Yellow Rose of Texas

Von Erichs vs Freebirds six-man match from 1984 David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions.

It’s a same day turnaround for this holiday treat, as Justin Jones (@xPrimusPilusx) returns to the podcast to discuss The Iron Claw, the new movie about the Von Erich family, which we saw earlier today.

There are plenty of spoilers (for a docudrama), so if you haven’t seen it yet, save it for after you watch it. Short answer: it’s a good movie, in and of itself, but not great, and pretty good for a wrestling movie. We discuss the whole film, which actors we thought did the best jobs in the main cast, as well as looking at all the actual wrestlers in the movie. (The one everyone is making fun of on social media isn’t that bad.)

There’s also a lot of general wrestling chat: territorial history, foreign menaces as world champion, attendances now and then and how to judge them, the careers of Ross and Marshall Von Erich and more. We also tease which new biopic will probably be the subject of an upcoming pod and will be praised nearly as much as this picture.

Note: we recorded this in the movie theater parking lot, while sitting in the car, and so the quality is not as good as usual. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Episode 120 - May Day

My second favorite wrestling angle of all time. Eddie Gilbert buries Bill Watts.

Amazingly, it’s taken almost eight years of the podcast to discuss officially discuss the Russian Flag Burial angle. It’s my second favorite angle of all-time and I once named a blog after it.

I had to get a fellow Mid-South/UWF fan on the show, so I’m happy to welcome back Greg Klein (@jydbook) to discuss it. There’s a preamble before we get to the angle, discussing Watts’ use of Russian heels in Mid-South (Volkoff, the sympathizer Khrusher Khrushchev, etc), Gilbert’s place in Mid-South before he starts managing Kortisa Korchenko and the evolution of Mid-South Wrestling into the UWF. Right before we discuss the angle, we play the clip (it’s around five minutes long) and then discuss it (from memory, we were not watching it in real time): the set-up, the commentary, the blocking, the props and the immediate aftermath. Then we talk about the Watts vs Hot Stuff feud, how it was booked, the insertion of Dusty and some JCP talent on the shows in Houston and New Orleans and how abruptly the angle segues into Watts’ feud with the Freebirds.

There’s also random wrestling talk later in the show, including Nick Bockwinkel as a touring World Champion (as Greg discussed on his podcast), gimmick matches in Houston, going to house shows in Baltimore and some other chit-chat, including Mid-Atlantic beaches and tax-free shopping in Delaware. Greg also mentions his books, including a new one hopefully out at the end of the year.

This pod was done on the spur of the moment and I appreciate Greg squeezing in the time to do it with a few hours’ notice.

Episode 114 - Louisiana Hayride

Al’s new book. Go buy it.

We’re happy to welcome Al Getz (@AlGetzwrestling) back to the show to discuss a variety of topics, but most importantly his new book, Charting the Territories: The 1971-1973 LeRoy McGuirk Oklahoma/Louisiana Wrestling Almanac.

We talk about the process of putting the book together from all of Al Getz’s into the 20+ year history of the territory and the use of his wrestling statistics to look at where people worked on a card and how prominent their feuds were during a particular time. We look at some of the familiar names in the territory, like Bill Watts and Danny Hodge, superstars working there regularly like Dusty Rhodes and the Spoiler and youngsters in the infancy of their careers, like Bob Backlund and Pez Whatley.

Al also talks about his odyssey this year to visit every Major League Baseball park and some of the minor league stadia as well. We learn what state Al visited for the first time, as well as some of the atypical ballpark food he ate during the course of the year.

We wrap with a cursory look at the new Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame ballot which had just been released when we recorded the pod. Rather than discuss individual candidates, we talked about some of the procedural changes implemented this year, increasing the number of votes and the inclusion of many tag teams and how that could effect people’s voting.