September 18, 201411 yr comment_5626381 Superstar Billy Graham seems to me to be the more obvious comparison.
September 18, 201411 yr comment_5626387 Super Macho Man seems like an archetype of many wrestlers. Most of whom drew inspiration from Graham. King Hippo though is obviously King Kong Bundy.
September 18, 201411 yr comment_5626389 Superstar Billy Graham seems to me to be the more obvious comparison. It's the white / blonde hair and big grin that are Bock-like to me, not so much the personality. Although now you mention it, Super Macho Man looks a bit like Billy Graham the evangelical preacher. And also a bit like Joe Biden. And now I mention all that, I think that Bockwinkel looks a bit like Joe Biden too.
September 19, 201411 yr comment_5626452 If you use jdownloader2 you can paste the channel's address and it will pick up all the videos for you so you don't have to convert them one by one. In fact I am currently creating a copy for myself and all 101 videos in the highest quality is only 15GB. I learned my lesson after the jellybeans collection of L.A. wrestling disappeared probably to never be seen again. I grabbed a bunch of 50s wrestling from LA off youtube a couple of years ago, unless you meant something else. I meant something else, but I'm curious about the footage that you got. The footage I am talking about is a big collection of early 80s L.A. wrestling probably from the Spanish channel (the commentator would alternate in between English and Spanish commentary during the same match) and also some local lucha libre program. Apparently the uploader (jellybeans with some number at the end) got tired of people asking him if he wanted to trade DVD's that he deleted the channel and vanished. This was during a time that I wasn't watching wrestling (I heard about the channel from a friend who told me) and I remember kicking myself for not downloading or even watching a long Perro Aguayo vs Mil Mascaras match from that era. There was also a Negro Navarro vs Mando Guerrero match that sounded interesting, and Chris Adams vs one of the misioneros (Navarro again I think). I don't think I have any of that, unfortunately. Here's what I do have from LA: Ace Freeman vs Billy Varga 1950 Ace Freeman vs Billy Venable 1941 Andre Drapp vs Ace Freeman 7-26-51 Andre The Giant vs Black Gordman & The Goliath 3-22-74 Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi vs Johnny Powers & Pat Patterson 8-24-73 Baron Michele Leone vs Billy Varga 1953 Baron Michele Leone vs Freddie Blassie 1953 Baron Michele Leone vs Hans Schnabel 12-11-52 Baron Michele Leone vs Jack McDonald 4-20-53 Baron Michele Leone vs Lord James Blears 1952 Baron Michele Leone vs Rito Romero 1956 Baron Michele Leone vs The Great Scott 1952 Bronko Nagurski vs Gus Sonnenberg 8-3-38 Bruno Sammartino vs Freddie Blassie 1964 Danny McShane vs Gino Garibaldi 1955 Dean Detton vs Dick Raines 1941 Edouard Carpentier vs Art Mahalik 2-3-60 Freddie Blassie & Warren Bockwinkel vs Mr Moto & Joe Pazandak 3-23-53 Freddie Blassie & Wilbur Snyder vs Wild Red Berry & Jack McDonald 5-25-53 Freddie Blassie vs Wild Red Berry 10-22-55 Giant Baba vs Fritz Von Erich 12-19-69 Gorgeous George vs Jesse James 4-9-51 Gorgeous George vs Larry Moquin 11-26-47 Jack Hagen vs Billy Raburn 1941 Jack McDonald vs Wilbur Snyder 5-4-53 Jim Londos vs George Zaharias 12-14-32 John Tolos & Karl Davis vs Wild Red Berry & Bud Curtis 53 Lou Thesz vs Tom Rice 8-15-54 Mando Guerrero & Texas Red vs Roddy Piper & Alex Perez 11-16-77 Mando Guerrero vs Roddy Piper 11-30-77 Mike Sharpe vs Negro Guzman 1960 Nick Bockwinkel vs Great John L 1955 Nick Bockwinkel vs Matt Murphy 6-17-59 Pat McGill vs Enrique Torres 1950 Pat McGill vs Mad Monty LeDux 1958 Pat McGill vs Pat Fraley 8-30-51 Pat O'Connor vs Bob Orton Sr 1-16-53 Sandor Szabo & Wilbur Snyder vs Joe Pazandak & Jack McDonald 5-31-54 Sandor Szabo vs Roger Mackay 1951 SD Jones & Texas Red vs Roddy Piper & Victor Rivera 11-23-77 Tatsumi Fujinami vs Great Goliath 1978 Tatsumi Fujinami vs Mando Guerrero 6-9-78 Tatsumi Fujinami vs Mando Guerrero 8-11-78 Tatsumi Fujinami vs Roddy Piper 1977 Tatsumi Fujinami vs Tony Rocco 6-15-79 Vic Hill vs Jack Gacek 1939 Warren Bockwinkel vs Wilbur Snyder 5-18-53 Wild Red Berry vs Yukon Jake 1941 Willem Ruska vs Don Fargo 6-26-76
September 19, 201411 yr comment_5626460 Bruno Sammartino vs Freddie Blassie 1964 Yes! Jim Londos vs George Zaharias 12-14-32 Yes! Nick Bockwinkel vs Great John L 1955 Nick Bockwinkel vs Matt Murphy 6-17-59
September 19, 201411 yr comment_5626574 Most of those are up on Youtube right now. I forgot some of them were just newsreel clips.
September 22, 201410 yr comment_5627792 Ricki Starr and Gorgeous George in the same ring together was pretty mind blowing. I'm not sure how much of a typical Starr showcase the Hermann match was, but it was neat seeing Starr cut loose at the end. Russ Davis, though... A little bit would be okay, but the guy doesn't have an off button.
September 23, 201410 yr comment_5627801 I'm pretty sure the Carpentier/Gagne match that's up is from 5/2/1958. Really great match that deserves a thread,
September 30, 201410 yr comment_5629894 Russ Davis seemingly refers to everyone as "boy" at some point. The japanese, the greek, the local Polack, etc. In some ways, this is like watching Punch Out! The stereotypes are cartoonish and turned up to 11. Welp, that might turn me off with Davis but I will have to watch the footage to find out. Other than that, I can't wait to dive into these batch of matches. I've never seen Thesz, Gagne or Rogers in their own primes so this gives me an opportunity to check them out. The one guy I really want to see is Don Leo Jonathan. He was one of my father's favorite wrestlers and I need to see his work out of curiosity.
October 12, 201410 yr comment_5632609 Speaking of Don Leo Jonathan I watched his match with Verne Gagne and I was really impressed. Don Leo Jonathan had GREAT presence and knew how to make the most of his size. I also loved his incredibly arrogant response to Verne Gagne's handshake attempt to start the match where he just whips his ring jacket at Gagne's hand and turns around.
October 13, 201410 yr comment_5632879 Speaking of Don Leo Jonathan I watched his match with Verne Gagne and I was really impressed. Don Leo Jonathan had GREAT presence and knew how to make the most of his size. I also loved his incredibly arrogant response to Verne Gagne's handshake attempt to start the match where he just whips his ring jacket at Gagne's hand and turns around. I watched the two matches of him and Jonathan was great. He started in the business around that time in the 50s so it kind of sucks that there is not a lot him from his prime. There's stuff from when he was in WWWF from the 70s but he was in his 40s by that time.
October 13, 201410 yr comment_5632881 The 60s and early 70s feel like such a black hole when it comes to the physical prime of certain guys.
October 18, 201410 yr comment_5634094 Just watched Gagne/Bruiser, and it's an interesting match to check out. Russ Davis deliberately steps away from the second fall as an experiment to try announcer-free wrestling. To Matt D's point, it's great to see some of these guys actually work in their primes. Dick the Bruiser is a bit reminiscent of Brock Lesnar in his look.
October 20, 201410 yr comment_5634329 Do we have any idea of the promotion and a date for Verne versus Bastien?
December 10, 201410 yr comment_5644583 Just picked this up myself and yes the footage is wonderful. Have they put on Tube everything they have or is there still more to come?
December 11, 201410 yr comment_5644719 There's supposed to be more to come. Check the Lou Thesz forum at Wrestling Classics.. the folks there were involved in this footage coming to light, and more detailed information can be found there.
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