Good morning and welcome to the day after the 4th of July. We have plenty of events and matches to flashback to today as well as update the condition of the wrestling business in both July of 1975 and 1985 today in a couple of territorial areas.
July 5th in the Time Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
Charley Perry Croy\Sailor Moran 1907
Wayne Bridges 1936
Shigeru Akabane\Little Tokyo 1941
Happy Birthday:
Jim Morris\Hillbilly Jim (73)
Mark Lowrance (66)
Jerry Sags (61)
Jamie Dundee (54)
Tatsuhito Takaiwa (53)
Adam Cole (36)
RIP Memorial: We stop & remember those who have passed on this day and gave themselves to the business for us, the fans. We salute you and thank you.
Walter Paul Sieber\Waldo Von Erich 7-5-2009 at the age of 75
W. Douglas Donnan\Karl Von Brauner 7-5-2009 at the age of 78
Select Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Match and Event Flashbacks
80-Year Flashback:
7-4-1945: Angelo Poffo set the world record for consecutive sit-ups by doing 6,033 sit-ups in 4 hours and 10 minutes
50-Year Flashback:
7-5-1975: Angelo, Lanny & Randy Poffo defeated Saul Weingeroff, Don Kent, Afa & Sika Anoa'i in a 4 on 3 handicap Match at the Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan
Exactly 30 years after Angelo had set the world record on sit ups while in the US Navy at the end of World War II, he is a proud father with his two sons wrestling for Ed Farhat, The Sheik in Detroit and going over in a handicap tag match against two veterans and two of the soon to be most famous tag teams of all time in pro wrestling. By the way, this was the semi-main event right under The Sheik defending his NWA United States Title against Tiger Jeet Singh in an Indian Mud Match if you can believe it. The crowd drew a reported 4,853 to Cobo Arena as this is for sure into at least the beginnings of Sheik's downward cycle in Detroit and Toronto.
Yesterday in my Pro Wrestling History Social Media Series for July, I'm listing 31 of the best Gimmick Matches in Pro Wrestling History and I listed this type of Gimmick Match as yesterday's entry into the list. I wish there were video of this match as it would have been a great example of it in the 1970s. Saul Weigneroff had been Angelo & Lanny's manager as heel NWA World Tag Team champions on 1975, so I can only guess that the Poffos had turned babyface here given Weingeroff is on the other side with notable heels Kent and his new tag team, brothers who would become The Wild Samoans. Another clue here is that Kent had become a regular tag partner of The Sheik as had Abdullah the Butcher at times.
Pictured: Angelo Poffo and his sons Lanny and Randy
Randy is in his rookie year here previously having worked under a hood as The Spider. It's hard to imagine the Poffos was babyfaces due to the fact they are all offensively limited, being much better bump taking heels, but Sheik's booking didn't make a lot of sense in these days. His biggest advantage was that he was the incumbent promotion and while he was under attack during this time from another promotion, he still had the big arena and longevity on his side. His greedy nature was also getting the best of him because in early 1975 he started running both Cobo and the Olympia Stadium, clearly spreading themselves too thin with a roster of just 16 to 18 guys and with ticket demand lower not higher with two wrestling promotions trying to drive the market. The opposite usually takes place which tells you how tired the Michigan and Ohio audiences were of the Sheik's product offering. This particular area of the National Wrestling Alliance was weakening in the Spring and Summer of 1975.
40-Year Flashback:
7-5-1985: Iceman King Parsons defeated Chris Adams (CH) to win the NWA American Heavyweight Championship at the Sportatorium in Dallas, Texas
This could have been around the peak of the iteration of World Class Championship Wrestling. The syndicated television offering was at its peak and the storytelling started getting weaker from here in 1985. No doubt this feud was one of the major draws of World Class at this time and Parsons was just under the Von Erich brothers as a crowd favorite using his "butt bump" as a crowd pop.
Adams, initially a babyface and aligned with the Von Erichs, turned heel here earlier in 1985, teaming with Gino Hernandez forming the second version of The Dynamic Duo. The heel turn did refresh Adams' character and boosted tickets sales at the time at one of the hottest periods for pro wrestling ticket sales nationally. The Dynamic Duo had been antagonizing the babyfaces, including Parsons, by cutting the faces' hair after matches which will lead to a huge gimmick match between the Von Erichs and the Dynamic Duo later in the year at the Cotton Bowl.
Economically, we are in the early days of the Texas and Gulf Coast Oil recession, which is going to affect every wrestling promotion in this part of the South, including Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling, which had started running Houston just a couple years before. Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana are still hotbeds for professional wrestling, and it is going to continue to draw large crowds for the next several months, but we will see it begin to tail off as we get closer to 1986.
But Fritz Von Erich is looking beyond Texas for the scope of World Class as it's about this time he strikes a deal with Antonio Inoki and New Japan Pro Wrestling to supply their American talent for tours starting in October of 1985. Inoki interest in Bruiser Brody and Kerry Von Erich were the two driving forces for the deal. Inoki, who already had a talent deal in place with the WWF was getting less and less thrilled with the talent on Vince's roster, reportedly narrowing his interest to Hulk Hogan (a former IWGP Champion), Andre the Giant and Adrian Adonis. It’s believed at the time that Brody was the one who put the New Japan\World Class talent deal in motion.
World Class is also scheduled to do a tour in Israel, which Jim Cornette has always said was the big reason they pulled out of World Class to go to Charlotte; besides the fact they had already agreed to come in for Crockett and only went to Dallas as a favor to Bill Watts. Las Vegas is also on the schedule for mid-September, which would be the first time an NWA member office ever went into a traditional AWA city to run a show.
The concern for the Dallas booking office at this time is the ability to continue to run the established Dallas loop in Texas, as well as add on cities like Vegas and send 3 to 6 big names to Japan every month. The roster depth just isn't there.
7-5-1985: Nikolai Volkoff & The Iron Sheik (CH) vs The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith & Dynamite Kid) for the WWF World Tag Team Titles at the Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids Iowa
This is a great example of a WWF "B" show for this period of time in the Summer of 1985 with the Intercontinental Title match on top of Greg Valentine as champion against the challenger The Junkyard Dog and the semi-main event being this match for the WWF World Tag belts. The "A" show in the A-towns would have been Hulk Hogan defending the WWF World Title against Brutus Beefcake, the new hot heel in the company.
This is the strategy for Vince McMahon and Titan Sports with the cable penetration of the USA Networks and Tuesday Night Titans and they’re ever growing and getting stronger syndication network in towns like Cedar Rapids across the Midwest into AWA and Central States Wrestling territories.
The WWF had a pretty good thing going in the tag team division in the Summer of 1985. Volkoff and Sheik had been in a program with the US Express, Barry Windham & Mike Rotunda, trading the World Tag Team titles a couple of times. Moving the Bulldogs, who had come into the WWF in 1984 up into this rotation in the B shows for the tag team titles was a good move. The Bulldogs, who were named for another tag team from decades earlier, had developed in Stu Hart's Calgary NWA office but had migrated to the WWF had crowds in Calgary started dwindling again as the territories began to wither in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Smith and Kid were great workers, moved at a fast pace and as most popular babyface tag teams do, used a lot of teamwork moves on their opponents. As had been the WWF style, they were given a manager, the babyface Lou Albano as opposed to the heel manager of the Russian and Iranian, Freddie Blassie. These house show cold matches that were run between these teams were prior to any angles or storyline developments on television in order to give the two teams some time to work together prior to showcasing or building any heat between them on television for possible A Show runs.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History
Its an amazing fact that Sieber and Donnan who played the wrestling characters of Von Erich and Von Brauner, both German Nazi Characters from the World War II era would both end up passing away on the same date in history, July 5th, 2009. Waldo Von Erich debuted when he was just 17 years old in 1950. Donnan was from Canada and was recruited and debuted for Stu Hart in Calgary, Canada in 1952.
Thank You for Reading
I'm Tony Richards, Pro Wrestling Historian, Author and Storyteller. I share pro wrestling historical items in each issue of the Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling History Newsletter. Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my information on select events, matches and insights, please share it with folks you think might like to be a subscriber!
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