This was the message Frank gave me about Portland and WWF footage...

 

Will,

 

I heard that Race defended the NWA title against Rick Martel

in Portland around 1980 or so.  I can't remember if I heard that

from Bix or from Dan.  I bought some early Portland footage

from Steve Friedlander in New York.  Most of the matches are

2 out of 3 falls running 20-40 minutes, so tapes fill up fast.  I'll

have to look through what I got again and start listing the best.

 

The WWF stuff comes from far and wide.  I bought some tapes

from McAdam years ago.  The same tapes might not dub as

well today because dubbing degrades the VHS master a little.

I got some footage from James Hoback, a private collector in

LA.  I'll ask him where he got it originally, if he can remember.

Again it may be from McAdam or Friedlander, but their quality

may not be as good after playing their tapes so many times.

 

Chris "Tabe" Tabar usually had great VQ as he would search

through many sources to find the best stuff.  He's semi-retired

from dealing/trading at this point, unfortunately.  Bud Carson

of Carson's Pro Wrestling World was another quality source,

but cease and desist orders from the WWE chased him away.

McAdam is selling expensive show by show DVDs from MSG

and Philly.  I'm pretty sure he copped those shows from Bud.

 

Fortunately the lack of degradation with DVDs should put an

end to all of the "food chain" shenanigans in pro wrestling tape

trading.  Used to be like heroin.  Quality went down every step

of the way and no one was willing to give up their connection.

 

Frank

Race defended against Martel in 1980. McAdam has it, or at least has it clipped. There are also plenty of Buddy Rose v Dynamite Kid matches available from the same time period. Flair wrestled Brett Sawyer in two matches around 1983-1984 that the Observer I believe gave ****+ in both cases. The DVDVR guys have raved about them too, so they're worth looking into.

 

I could also look into picking up some Florida footage. Briscos, Terry Funk, Flair, Barry Windham ... it was pretty much considered the best territory in the country until Dusty ran it into the ground in the early 80s.