It’s always with a heavy heart that we do this show every year. Today, we pay tribute to the wrestlers and personalities we lost in 2023. Several of whom we have on our list to do tribute shows to anyway.

2:30 – Lanny Poffo

One of the worst-kept secrets in wrestling was that he was Randy Savage’s younger brother. He is probably best remembered for his time in WWE where he wrestled as Leaping Lanny Poffo and later managed other wrestlers as The Genius. But he did have a solid in-ring career in his father Angelo Poffo’s Kentucky-based ICW promotion and later in Jerry Jarrett’s CWA.

7:20 – Joyce Grable

Joyce was best known for tagging with WWE Hall Of Famer Wendi Richter. Like many women trained by Fabulous Moolah, she knew the crucial things to do when playing babyface or heel.

8:30 – Jerry Jarrett

We can’t say much about Jerry that isn’t already known. He was a wrestler turned promoter and was the father of Jeff Jarrett. His Memphis-based promotion ran for decades after a famous split in the 1970s. He was also Vince McMahon’s hand-picked replacement had he gone to prison for the big steroid trial of the 1990s.

8:35 – Mike Halac

He didn’t have a very long career but was the infamously bad “Mantaur” gimmick in the early 90s.

17:45 – Droz

Darren Drozdov was best known as a temporary third member of The Legion of Doom during The Attitude Era. Unfortunately, a horrible in-ring accident crippled him and ended his career.

20:00 – Charlie Norris

Despite the name, Charlie has no relation to or play off of Chuck Norris. It was his real name and part of his Native American heritage.

22:30 – Brett Wayne Sawyer

The younger brother of the late great Buzz Sawyer, Brett wrestled mainly in the southern territories and rand a wrestling school. He was a former USWA Tag Team Champion with a young up-and-coming wrestler named Flex Kavana…

24:30 – Adrian Street

Adrian Street was born and raised in England. His gimmick that played off homosexual stereotypes probably wouldn’t fly today but he had a long and successful in-ring career.

31:00 – Adnan al-Kaissie

He was most seen as General Adnan during Sergeant Slaughter’s “Iraqi sympathizer” gimmick in 1991, but he had a long career as a wrestler and manager in the territory days.

35:15 – Butch Miller

A tag team wrestler with Luke Williams for most of his career, first as The Kiwis, then as the bloodthirsty villains The Sheepherders. But ironically their biggest money run was late in their careers as the comedy babyface duo called The Bushwackers.

40:40 – Killer Khan

Billed as a brutal heel from Mongolia, Khan had high-profile runs against the likes of Andre The Giant and Hulk Hogan. He is the inspiration for the character Kin Corn Karn in the classic NES game Pro Wrestling.

43:00 – Peggy Lee Leather

Peggy had runs in both the Rock ‘n Wrestling Era of WWE as well as the original incarnation of GLOW.

46:45 – Jay Briscoe

One of the top tag team wrestlers in the modern era, Jay spent most of his career tagging with his brother as The Briscoe Brothers in Ring of Honor. He passed away after a car accident.

52:40 – Bray Wyatt

Another one is gone in his prime and way too soon. Bray was Windham Rotundam, the real-life brother of Taylor Rotunda, aka Bo Dallas.

60:00 – The Iron Sheik

Again, there is not much we can say that wasn’t already known outside of his early days he wrestled as a babyface with a full head of hair. But after relations between the USA and The Middle East became a hot-button issue, he shaved his head, grew a mustache, and wore pointy boots.

64:00 – Superstar Billy Graham

Most territories had babyface challengers chasing heel champions. WWE did the opposite and depicted their champion as a babyface dragon slayer. Yet somehow Superstar managed to have a record-setting reign as a heel champion. Roman Reigns has since broken that record, but it still shows how special Superstar was in wrestling history.

74:20 – Terry Funk

Terry debuted in the mid-1960s and spent a lot of time in Texas, Florida, The Carolinas, AND Japan. He and his brother Dory Funk, Jr. are the only brothers to win the NWA World Championship. He also had an acting career outside of wrestling in feature films such as Road House and Paradise Alley.

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Antonio Inoki, arguably the most influential wrestler of all time, passed away this past year at the age of 79. Outside of the ring, he is also arguably the second greatest promoter of all time behind Vince McMahon. His whole story is way too long to tell in a single episode but we will do the best we can.

Inoko popularized the inter-promotional show concept where wrestlers from multiple promotions appeared on the same card. He wanted to present pro wrestlers as being just as tough as other combat sports fighters, so he billed himself as a World Martial Arts Champion. He is believed to be the only person to defeat both Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant by submission. Fans even pleaded with him to slap them, because they believed his fighting spirit might be slapped into them.

Early Days With Rikidozan

Kanji Inoki was born February 20th, 1943 in Yokohama Japan. He was an accomplished athlete in basketball, discus, and javelin.

While living in Brazil, Inoki met Rikidozan. He returned to Japan to train with Giant Baba under Karl Gotch. In these early years, RikiDozan was a mentor, while Baba was the bigger star. The relationship between Baba and Inoki would take a major turn in the next decade.

Rising to Superstardom

Inoki spent the mid-1960s in the United States and became an international star. While wrestling in the States, he used several ring names including Tokyo Tom, Mr. Kazimoto, Little Tokyo, and Kamikaze. He used his real name Kanji Inoki in Memphis and Texas.

When he returned to Japan, he and Baba won the NWA International Tag Team Championship four times. This time was considered a golden age of Japanese wrestling with all the star power and box office business.

Baba and Inoki conspired to take over JWA but their coup was discovered. The two lost the tag titles to The Funks as a result. Inoki then no-showed several big matches and was fired while Baba quit to start his own promotion, All Japan Pro Wrestling.

Forming New Japan

Inoki founded New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in 1972. The next 15 years or so were his peak years, both as an in-ring competitor and as a promoter. This is also when he became professionally known as Antonio Inoki. He took the name as a tribute to Antonio Rocca.

NJPW would go on to be one of the most popular promotions not only in Japan but also with international wrestling fans. It was a part of the NWA from 1975 until 1985. New Japan is considered the innovator of the inter-promotional, company vs. company match, angles based on shoots, and mixed martial arts, and a company v. c.

Match with Muhammad Ali

The famous match took place on June 26th, 1976. It was meant to be a work, but Ali refused to lose because he thought it would hurt his image and boxing in general. So the match turned into a shoot with secret rules not known to the public where there could be no suplexes, slams, etc… Also there would be no standing kicks. In the end, Inoki lay on the mat and kicked Ali’s legs. While he didn’t win, Inoki messed up Ali’s legs pretty badly. Boxing judge Ko Toyama scored 72-68 for Inoki. Gene LeBell scored it 71-71. MMA fighter Connor MacGregor studied the fight and said Inoki’s tactics were sound and that he had a real shot at winning the fight.

The match flopped everywhere except Shea Stadium where it was paired with Bruno/Hansen. However, Inoki’s international stardom wasn’t hurt much and he spent the rest of the 1970s as the biggest international wrestling star.

Wrestling Prime

Giant Baba and Inoki did actually team one more time in 1979 to defeat Tiger Jeet Singh and Abdullah The Butcher. The match was meant to plant seeds for an eventual match between the two, but that never happened due to a falling out between New Japan and All Japan.

Inoki actually defeated WWE (then WWWF) Champion Bob Backlund on November 30, 1979. However, Tiger Jeet Singh interfered in the match, the title was declared vacant. The title change was never officially recognized by WWE, and Backlund was still billed as the world champion. Backlund and Inoki would have several rematches, but they would end in count-outs or draws, so the title wouldn’t change hands. Unrecognized title reigns were not uncommon in those days since there were no national promotions, let alone the internet or national TV. They were used to sell tickets locally, and in almost every case, the champion would win back the title, and the change was ignored by the promotion.

Peak New Japan Popularity

By the 1980s, NJPW was considered the largest company in the world. They also had a partnership with WWWF complete with their own version of a WWF Championship, the WWF International Title. (possibly similar to IWGP US Title) This meant huge international matches with top Japan stars including Riki Choshu, and Tatsumi Fujinami with foreign stars the likes of Hogan, Masked Superstar, and Andre, along with then up-and-coming stars like the original Tiger Mask, Dynamite Kit, and Bret Hart This era is credited with when smaller wrestlers started being portrayed in a larger light.

This arguably came to a peak in 1983 with the first IWGP League. The story told was that there were several tournaments around the world to determine national champions, with the final tournament to determine a world champion taking place in the IWGP League and the first IWGP Champion being crowned. The tournaments were as fictitious as WWE’s IC Title tournament in 1979.

The finals saw the infamous tournament final in which Hulk Hogan knocked out Inoki with an Axe Bomber. Officials and personnel instantly gathered around Inoki. Even Hogan, who was the heel in the match, showed concern. Hogan was awarded the belt via Count-Out. However, even this was a work and was the baseline for the next tournament in 1984.

Twilight In-Ring Career

Inoki announced his retirement from full-time competition in 1995 and went on a tour called “The Final Countdown”. He then focused on promoting New Japan full-time and wrestled sporadically over the next couple of years, His final regular match on April 4, 1998, against Don Frye packed people into The Tokyo Dome and set a new all-time box office record in Japan. Unfortunately, Inoki broke a rib so the match was cut short.

Career Accomplishments

WCW HALL OF FAME – 1995

WRESTLING OBSERVER HALL OF FAME – 1996

TRAGOS/THESZ HALL OF FAME – 2005

PRO WRESTLING HALL OF FAME – 2009

WWE HALL OF FAME – 2010

INTERNATIONAL PRO WRESTLING HALL OF FAME – 2021

The post Vol. 47: Antonio Inoki (1943-2022) appeared first on Classic Wrestling Memories.

Gene LeBell may be the most famous judoka of all time. He was also a highly sought-after stuntman and stunt coordinator. And on top of that, he was also a professional wrestler in one of the biggest territories in history, NWA Hollywood. Seth and Train pay tribute to the legendary career of “Judo” Gene LeBell, who in his life may have actually done some of the stuff Chuck Norris jokes were made about because he helped train Chuck Norris

Gene LeBell grew up in the Los Angeles area and was born into the sports promotion business. His parents were boxing promoters and his brother Mike ran the WWA (later NWA Hollywood) California territory. LeBell began his wrestling training at the ripe old age of seven at the hands of Ed “Strangler” Lewis, who was one-third of The Gold Dust Trio.

He got into wrestling in 1955 and often worked under a mask in undercard matches as The Hangman to put over talent that were moving up the card. Gene wore the mask to hide his identity and protect his status as a world-class Judo champion.

One of the “Chuck Norris” type stories happened when Bearcat Wright won the WWA title from Freddie Blassie in 1963. Mike wanted to put the belt on Eduardo Carpentier (who, depending on which territory you followed, was a former NWA champion). When Wright refused to drop the title, Blassie went to the promoters and convinced them that Wright would lose to him, and then he could lose it to Carpentier three days later. Wright shot on his friend Blassie and legitimately knocked him out.

Three days later, Bearcat Wright stood in the ring for his title defense against Carpentier. However, the masked Hangman made his way to the ring in Carpentier’s place. Wright, who at 6’7″ and 275 pounds was an undefeated boxer, turned tail and escaped rather than face LeBell. He jumped in his Cadillac and drove to Arizona.

LeBell also competed in what many would call the first-ever MMA Match when he faced a boxer named Milo Savage.

He worked in hundreds of movies and TV shows including The Munsters where Herman was a wrestler.

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October is here and so is our annual episode devoted to WCW’s Halloween Havoc. This year we look at Halloween Havoc 1990 which saw Sting defend the NWA World Heavyweight Championship against Sid Vicious in a match that had one of the craziest finishes in the history of pro wrestling. And that is saying something…

4:30 – Pro Wrestling in 1990

Both WCW and WWF had new faces as top guys in 1990 in the forms of Sting and The Ultimate Warrior respectively. Coincidentally, Sting and Warrior broke into wrestling as a tag team called The Blade Runners. Other top stars in WCW at the time were Lex Luger, Stan Hansen, The Freebirds, and The Steiner Brothers.

10:00 – Storylines and Angles

It’s worth mentioning that the version on Peacock and WWE Network is the same as the home video release from 1990. This version omits several undercard matches, likely due to videotape time limitations.

Express vs. Express

The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane) attacked Robert Gibson of The Rock & Roll Express and injured his knee. Gibson injured his knee in real life so this storyline was made to explain his absence. Former NWA World Champion Tommy Rich stepped in to aid Ricky Morton against The Midnights.

The Freebirds vs. The Renegade Warriors

Neither team were champions, but usually, the winner of a match on a major PPV would be seen as the next contender for tag team titles.

The US Tag Team Titles

The Steiner Brothers were well on their way to being a top tag team. The two won the NWA US Tag Championship from The Midnight Express.

World Tag Team Titles

The World Tag Champions, Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed) defended the titles against Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. This makes for a heel vs. heel match. However, the crowd treated Flair and Arn like babyfaces

US Title

Lex Luger as a heel defeated a babyface Michael Hayes for the United States Championship in the summer of 1989 and held the title until this event. At 523 days, it is to this day still the longest US Title reign. Luger also turned babyface during this reign while Hayes turned heel to reform The Freebirds with Jimmy Garvin.

Stan Hansen was working for WCW between stints in All Japan Pro Wrestling.

Main Event Storyline

Sting became the top babyface in 1990 by defeating Ric Flair for the NWA Title at The Great American Bash. He had actually joined The Horsemen in late 1989 when Arn Anderson returned to WCW after a year-long stint in The WWF. However, Arn’s longtime tag partner, Tully Blanchard, failed a drug test while in WWE so WCW refused to hire him. The Horsemen reshuffled their lineup with Ole Anderson taking Blanchard’s place. This was the first time The Horsemen were presented as a babyface faction as they had been the top heels for Jim Crockett Promotions for the past few years.

The babyface Horsemen run was short-lived. The Horsemen turned on Sting a few months later because Sting challenged Flair to a match for the NWA Title. Unfortunately, Sting suffered a legitimate knee injury at Clash of the Champions when he ran out during a six-man cage match and tried to climb into the cage. The injury put Sting on the shelf for several months and delayed the match. Barry Windham returned to WCW around this time and rejoined The Horsemen. Ole retired from in-ring competition in the Spring of 1990 so then up-and-coming monster Sid Vicious joined the group.

The Main Event Match

The Sting/Vicious main event at Halloween Havoc 1990 went down in history as having one of the craziest finishes of all time. The match spilled to the floor where Sid inexplicably seemed to run away. Sting chased after him and disappeared backstage. A few moments later, the two seemingly ran back into the ring where Sting tried to slam Sid. However, he collapsed under the weight of the 6’9″ Sid and got pinned. Sid was even announced as the new champion until the real Sting ran to the ring with his arm tied up with a rope. It turns out The Horsemen had tied Sting up backstage and Barry Windham went to the ring dressed in an identical outfit. The referee promptly restarted the match and Sting rallied to retain the title.

1:01:30 – The Fallout

There was no rematch or follow-up between Sting and Vicious after Halloween Havoc 1990. WCW’s next PPV was Starrcade in December 1990. Two teams that won matches at Halloween Havoc (Morton/Rich and The Freebirds) would go on to face each other. Doom would again face The Horsemen, only this time it was a Street Fight against Arn Anderson and Barry Windham due to Flair being allegedly injured before the PPV. Starrcade ’90 saw Sting finally defend the title against The Black Scorpion.

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The reason we are talking about this year’s WWE Hall Of Fame inductees is that most of the inductees had long careers prior to our cutoff point of WCW and ECW going out of business.

The Steiner Brothers

Rick and Scott Steiner sat atop the tag team rankings for a decade before Scott Steiner started developing his Big Poppa Pump persona. Before that, Rick Steiner had seen success as a singles wrestler and as part of The Varsity Club stable. It wasn’t until the brothers split in 1998 that Scott Steiner started developing his Big Popp Pump person, which lead to many memorable promos.

Sharmell

Sharmell Sullivan-Huffman may not have had the greatest in-ring career, but she was a regular for both WCW and WWE. She is perhaps best remembered for her time as Queen Sharmell alongside her real-life husband Booker T. Outside of the ring she was the 1991 Miss Black America pageant winner. She also has owned and operated several businesses over the years.

Shad Gaspard – Warrior Award

Gaspard was a fixture on WWE programming during the mid-2000s. He and partner JTG formed the tag team Cryme Tyme. Tragically, he lost his life while swimming with his son when the two were swept up in a current. He pleaded to rescuers that she should save his young son before saving him..

Big Van Vader

We talked about Vader’s career more in-depth in Vol. 21. Leon White played for The NFL before getting hired by Verne Gagne for The AWA.He would go on to win world titles in just about every promotion he was in.

The Undertaker

We’ve stated before that The Undertaker is a perfect example of the right gimmick going to the right guy at the right time. There is literally nobody else who could have been The Undertaker other than Mark Callaway. We discuss his different gimmicks in various territories before going to WWE in 1990. Here is a promo from Memphis with him and The Soultaker, a pre-Godfather Charles Wright.

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“Hey yo!” Scott Hall made that common greeting a trademark catchphrase. With his signature toothpick and slicked-back hair, Scott Hall was arguably one of the greatest and most influential wrestlers of all time who never held a world championship. He was trained by the legendary Hiro Matsuda, who had also trained the likes of Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, and The Great Muta.

BREAKING IN

Hall started wrestling for Eddie Graham’s Championship Wrestling from Florida in 1984. He and Dan Spivey formed a tag team called American Starship, with Hall known as Coyote and Spivey as Eagle. Both men had impressive looks but were way too green to connect with the crowd. The team disbanded with Hall going to work for Verne Gagne in The AWA.

Gagne repackaged Hall as “Big” Scott Hall and gave him a look similar to Magnum TA. The TV show Magnum PI was a huge hit that made Tom Selleck (and his impressive mustache) a household name. Plus, Magnum TA was already a fan favorite in the Crockett territory. Scott was put in another tag team, this time with Curt Hennig, with the plan being to eventually make him a major singles star. While the duo did win the AWA tag team championship, it was actually Hennig that became the singles star. Hall left the AWA in the late 80s to join Jerry Jarrett’s CWA in Memphis.

Hall finally saw success as a singles star in Memphis. However, since he was an outsider, he would only get pushed so far because Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee were the hometown heroes. Around this time, he started doing tours with New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Hall finally saw work on a national stage when he signed with WCW. He became a heel called The Diamond Studd and Diamond Dallas Page became his manager. This is also where he met Kevin Nash, who at the time had been using gimmick names like The Great Oz and Vinnie Vegas. While the two were a physically impressive duo, they didn’t see much success in the ring, and both signed with The World Wrestling Federation in the early 90s.

RAZOR RAMON

Hall made his WWE debut in 1992 as Razor Ramon, a character inspired by Tony Montana from the movie Scarface. He was an instant hit with the fans and quickly became one of the company’s top stars. This is the look and persona that would stay with him for the rest of his career. It also brought him his first high-profile money feud in the form of “Macho Man” Randy Savage since Ramon claimed to be “Oozing Machismo”.

By the Fall of 1992, Razor was headlining shows against Savage. He also challenged then WWE Champion Bret “The Hitman” Hart for the title at the 1993 Royal Rumble. Razor turned babyface in the summer of 1993. He would go on to hold the WWF Intercontinental Title for a then-record four times. This is also where he gained a reputation backstage along with friends Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Sean “1-2-3 Kid” Waltman, and HHH as a “clique”.

Hall and Nash signed with WCW in the spring of 1996. Their final WWE appearance was with the rest of their fellow clique members. This was the infamous “Curtain Call” incident in Madison Square Garden where they all broke character and embraced in the ring.

THE NWO

In May 1996, Scott Hall shocked the world by appearing on WCW Nitro to start the NWO invasion angle. He interrupted a match between Mike Enos and Steve Dunne and cut a promo that made several references that made some fans think there actually was a WCW vs. WWE program happening. We go into a lot more detail regarding The NWO in Volume 8. The first year or two of The NWO struck gold and put WCW over the top of WWE in The Monday Night War. Unfortunately, it also led to a multitude of financial problems with the company, as well as the personal issues that plagued Hall throughout his career.

LATTER YEARS

WCW became a revolving door for Hall in the late 90s due to his personal issues and substance abuse. He finally left the company for good in 2000. After sporadic appearances in ECW and a short-lived WWE return in 2002, he stopped wrestling full-time. He made occasional appearances in different promotions over the next decade. He was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame as Razor in 2014.

We at Classic Wrestling Memories extend our deepest condolences, thoughts, and prayers to Scott Hall’s family.

REFERENCES MADE

• The New Breed whose gimmick was that they were time travelers
• AWA’s WrestleRock Rumble rap video
• Razor Ramon vs. Ted Dibiase in what was Dibiase’s final match in WWE

The post Vol. 43: “The Bad Guy” Scott Hall appeared first on Classic Wrestling Memories.