Another completely random one: I watched the Watts/Stagger Lee vs. Midnights from the Midsouth set the other night and left my thoughts on DVDR.

 

Now, Watts works like he's about 55 going on 60 in that match. I assumed he was pretty old. Looked him up on Wiki today just to check - by my calculations he was 44/45 when that match took place in 1984.

 

WTF?! Why was he so old and out of shape? Was he injured? What happened to him? Undertaker is older than that NOW. Flair at 45 was awesome. What gives?

Another completely random one: I watched the Watts/Stagger Lee vs. Midnights from the Midsouth set the other night and left my thoughts on DVDR.

 

Now, Watts works like he's about 55 going on 60 in that match. I assumed he was pretty old. Looked him up on Wiki today just to check - by my calculations he was 44/45 when that match took place in 1984.

 

WTF?! Why was he so old and out of shape? Was he injured? What happened to him? Undertaker is older than that NOW. Flair at 45 was awesome. What gives?

Didn't he suffer a pretty bad injury on the night of their first tag match? I think it was something involving his legs.

Why did WWF end up changing from chain link fence to the blue bars cage in the mid 1980's? And why did they end up changing back to using chain link fence in 1999?

Hell In A Cell probably warranted the change back to a more traditional cage.

I'm guessing it had to do either with television cameras or the slow climb dynamic. Probably the latter.

Pure speculation, but the blue bars always seemed far less scary to me as a kid, so perhaps it was another facet of the cartoon environment of the time. I still have vivid memories/nightmares of Flair's bloody face being raked across the metal mesh of those traditional cages.

The two things that seemed likely:

 

* easier to shoot through as mentioned

 

* safer to climb

 

The second strikes me as a Hogan thing. And not entirely a dumb reason.

 

John

The blue cage wasn't very sturdy from what I've heard as well.

What I'd never seen before last week is the bigger cage, blue-steel WWF style only black on the Mid-South set, but much much bigger than the ring in terms of circumference - could bump to the floor- but also really quite short.

 

This is the cage from Wrestling II/ Mangum TA vs. Niedhart/ Reed.

When did Big Blue debut in the WWF?

 

I know they used it for Mania II for the Hogan-Bundy. It also was used in the SNME Hogan-Orndorff.

 

My recollection is that the Hogan-Muraco cage match in MSG in 1985 was in the normal wire cage.

 

Bruno & Tito vs Savage & Adonis was in an old style cage.

 

Superstar vs Reed was in Big Blue in 1987. Savage-DiBiase in MSG was in Big Blue, and it looks like the rest through the decade in MSG were as well.

 

Bruno-Piper and Hogan-Orndorff in Philly was in an old cage in 1986.

 

Savage-Honky in Philly was in an old cage in early 1988, but Savage-Ted in Philly was in Big Blue.

 

 

Hogan-Bossman in Boston was an old cage, while the MSG and SNME ones were in Big Blue. Savage & Strikforce vs Honky & the Hart Foundation was in the old cage.

 

It wasn't exactly consistent across the board in how they moved, but:

 

* Big Blue was on the PPV's and SNME

* it seems that MSG transistioned to using Big Blue in 1987

* other arenas were slower in transitioning

 

John

Don't know but I would guess Hogan/Bundy. I'm pretty sure the last time it was used was in that Austin/McMahon match from '99 at the PPV before that year's WM, and it was painted black.

Lawler trying to save the Mid-South Coliseum:

http://www.wmctv.com/story/14434841/wrestl...seum-demolition

Thinking of the last time the actual blue was used now, aside from the black Austin / McMahon one.

 

I'm pretty sure Money Inc. vs. The Steiners from 1993 was blue cage. Yes, take a look: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2suio_th...ney-inc-c_sport

 

Real slept on match that.

 

Rude vs. Piper was also blue cage. And Rude vs. Warrior where his tights come down.

 

They used that blue cage quite a lot come to think of it. I'm wondering if that Steiners / Money Inc match was the last?

 

No, hang on, Bret vs. Owen at Summerslam 1994, pretty sure that was blue cage. Any more after that?

Bret Hart-Diesel from IYH Feb. '96 and Mankind-Hunter from SummerSlam '97 come to mind.

Rock vs Shamrock vs Mankind at Breakdown 1998

 

Damn good match too

Rock-Triple H @ Rebellion UK PPV in 1999 had it.

A week before that Rebellion PPV, they used the bar cage for the infamous Kennel from Hell match on Unforgiven 1999. Right before the McMahon-Austin cage match, they had re-introduced the chain linked cage on RAW for a Kane-HHH match (which I think was the first TV taping use of a chain linked fence cage in the 1990's in WWF unless I'm missing something).

Don't know but I would guess Hogan/Bundy. I'm pretty sure the last time it was used was in that Austin/McMahon match from '99 at the PPV before that year's WM, and it was painted black.

Hogan-Bundy was definitely the first time, with it being promoted as being able to withstand Bundy's weight. Last high profile match would be the Kennel match. They still used the steel bars cage on some house shows into the last decade.

 

As far as house shows it seemed kinda random until they went uniform.

 

The Mid-South/UWF cage was kinda weird in that the door was really small and it was clearly an effort for the wrestlers to get in.

As far as house shows, I think a bunch of those arenas had their own rings and such that they used. (I'm definitely thinking the Boston Garden's wooden ring steps here.) Those arenas probably kept their own cages in storage as well. I'm just making an educated guess, but I think it took Vince and company several years before they started carrying their own gear to every single stop.

How did Hulk Hogan and Mr.T get booked on Saturday Night Live? I watched the butchered Netflix version today. Seems strange the WWF got to spend so much network TV time hyping Wrestlemania.

That was right when NBC and WWF signed up for Saturday Night's Main Event.

How did Hulk Hogan and Mr.T get booked on Saturday Night Live? I watched the butchered Netflix version today. Seems strange the WWF got to spend so much network TV time hyping Wrestlemania.

Man, I remember having a couple of friends over to watch that SNL and the next day my Mom took us to see Mania on Closed Circuit at the Spectrum. I taped the SNL and must've watched it a thousand times. The musical guest was the Commodores, ( they did Night Shift) and there was a really funny bit with Billy Crystal as a substitute teacher teaching comedy to kids.

That was right when NBC and WWF signed up for Saturday Night's Main Event.

I figured something like that. Dick Ebersol was running SNL. Pissed that they chopped it down to 27 minutes.

The really strange thing about that episode is that other than the monologue, the only other skit they appear in (other than the one as themselves with Billy Crystal as Fernando) is one where they are used as essentially Jason rip-off's if I remember the skit right. Just really odd because it went against their image so much.

The really strange thing about that episode is that other than the monologue, the only other skit they appear in (other than the one as themselves with Billy Crystal as Fernando) is one where they are used as essentially Jason rip-off's if I remember the skit right. Just really odd because it went against their image so much.

Yeah, there's a Friday the 13th skit where at the end Hogan comes out dressed as Jason. They also spoof the Belzer incident during the monologue.