For many fans of the sport, the mid-to-late 1980s through the early 1990s are deemed to be the glory years of professional wrestling. Compelling storylines (think the Hulk Hogan/Randy “Macho Man” Savage/Elizabeth love triangle and Shawn Michaels attacking longtime partner Marty Jannetty on Brutus Beefcake’s “Barber Shop”), celebrity crossovers (consider The A-Team muscle Mr. T […]
Tag: professional wrestling
Wrestling with Country Music and Baseball: “Mat Memories” is a Home Run
Had he continued on his ill-advised foray into becoming a professional wrestler, the Sultan of Schizophrenia would have been an appropriate moniker for John Arezzi. By his own admission, Arezzi’s life has been a frenetic whirlwind of undeniable success, unavoidable obstacles, and missed opportunities, with a sprinkling of well-deserved, old-fashioned, luck for good measure. But […]
From Football To ‘Chico’ – Wrestling Legend Santana Shares His Story
Billed from the nonexistent town of Tocula, Mexico throughout his illustrious career, Tito Santana, one of the most technically sound and respected professional wrestlers of the 1980s through the early ‘90s, was actually born and raised in Mission, Texas, before gaining worldwide fame inside the squared circle. “Vince (McMahon, owner of the then-World Wrestling Federation, […]
Celebrating Mexico in NYC – Lucha Libre Style
It was easy to confuse the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden for Arena Ciudad de Mexico on Sunday, September 15, as Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide, Mexico’s leading professional wrestling promotion, produced an authentic lucha libre experience for the thousands in attendance lucky enough to have witnessed the historic event. Coined Invading NY, the exhibition […]
Pro Wrestling’s Arezzi in the ‘Spotlight’ Again
Wrestling fans in 2019 have a cornucopia of choices at their disposal to satiate their auditory appetites. Between Chris Jericho’s jolting Talk is Jericho, Edge and Christian’s clever E&C Pod of Awesomeness, and Bruce Prichard’s polemical Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, there is seemingly an option for every admirer of the grappling game. One […]
Former Wrestler/Ref Danny Davis Has The ‘X’ Factor
Wrestling autobiographies are not exactly a scarce commodity nowadays. Between tomes written by grappling luminaries like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Chris Jericho, and Bret “Hitman” Hart, pro wrestlers chronicling their wild and frenzied days as kingpins of the squared circle have certainly cultivated a crowded field in the genre in the last 15 years or […]
This ‘Killer Bee’ is an ‘A’ Inside The Ring
Ask any fan of 1980s professional wrestling what their favorite characteristic of the era was and you’ll likely receive a plethora of responses, ranging from the bombastic personalities, the loquacious managers, the nearly-extinct squash matches, and, of course, the crossover into the mainstream. But no list of attributes of the extravagant decade would be complete […]
MLW’s de la Renta ‘Manages’ To Make Her Mark in Pro Wrestling
Once a routine part of professional wrestling, managers have seen their once-pivotal roles gradually become extinct in the sport’s modern era. While figures such as Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, Jim Cornette, and Captain Lou Albano previously held the distinction of acting as smarmy mouthpieces for many of wrestling’s most esteemed characters, eventually, the available jobs […]
Micro Wrestling Proves Size Doesn’t Matter
Once a regular feature on weekly professional wrestling television, midget wrestling eventually suffered the same fate as other previous staples of the sport such as “jobbers” (performers whose primary role was to lose their matches while enhancing their opponents’ abilities) and “managers” (supporting players who were tasked with strengthening their charges). That is, it virtually […]
Poffo Talks Road Perils, Macho Man, and his Wrestling ‘Days’
While the generally accepted belief is that in order to cope with the grueling, seemingly endless, life on the road for pro wrestlers in the 70s and 80s, drugs were a necessity, don’t tell that to Lanny Poffo; the former wrestler doesn’t buy it. “It’s a complete cop-out,” he contended. “I was on the road […]