Mid-Week Report
By Bill
- Trivia Question: Aside from "Big", what other nickname did Scott Hall have early in his career? (Answer at the end of the report)
- For all you Arn Anderson marks out there, Arn's doing a couple of personal appearances at the end of December, one in Maryland and one in Long Island. See his official website for more details.
- The mailbag:
- From Boots:
Wanted to let you know, that animated "Santa Claus" at the top of the page appears to be the legendary Thunderbolt Patterson of the old NWA. That's definitely his strut and maybe even his beard. If you remember him, you'll find I'm right!
- From John M.:
I just got back from a vacation in Tampa, Florida and I had to e-mail you this story. I was staying in Madeira Beach but because it was so cold last week, which ruined my beach time, I drove around and saw some of the neighboring cities. I stopped at this restaurant called Crabby Bill's to eat dinner. Since so many people recommended it to me I had to go there.
While I was waiting for my order I saw there were advertisements on the placemats. The one that made me laugh was the $100.00 discount to the Bushwackers Pro Wrestling Camp. The address said the camp was in St. Petersburg, Florida. When I finished eating, I noticed on the wall by the bar there were pictures of almost every WCW wrestler taken with a young man in a wheelchair. I asked a waiter who that young man was in all those photos and it turned out to be the owners's (Crabby Bill) grandson. The waiter told me that the young man was a huge wrestling fan and goes to live events all the time. There were pictures that covered the wall from top to bottom and most of them had been personalized by the wrestlers themselves. I saw pictures
of Hogan, Savage, Sting, Flair, and The Giant with the World Title belt!
The waiter said that pro wrestlers come in here to eat all the time. I started to leave when the waiter said that there was a pro wrestler in the restaurant eating right now! I was looking around when I saw none other than Greg "The Hammer" Valentine eating dinner. I wanted to saw "hello" but I didn't want to bother him. He
looks just he does on television. Anyway, figured you would get a laugh from this story.
- Mick Y. pointed out an interesting fact. A big deal is made out of Goldberg being 174-0. It may be true that he is the first undefeated World Heavyweight Champion in history, but there is someone in history with a longer rookie winning streak. Primo Carnera's win streak ended at 321-0 on 4/20/49 when he was defeated by Antonino Rocca.
- When they were handcuffing Ric Flair on Nitro, did anyone besides me think that they legitimately hurt him? He was screaming about his wrist and looked pissed. He pulled away and they wound up not handcuffing him which looked to me to be an unplanned ending.
- A number of you send me the rumors and news from the other pages. I read it all and appreciate it. Many of you may wonder why I never post any of it. Well, last week was a perfect example of why. An urban legend started being passed around about Time Magazine pulling Mick Foley off their poll. All of the major sheets were up in arms about it and everyone was sending hate e-mail to Time Magazine.
And, as is usually the case with wrestling fans on the Internet, no one bothers to check the facts or even stop to think about whether or not the rumor makes sense. Or whether it even matters. Once a "credible" page puts up some far-fetched story, everyone immediately believes it. Then, when it's proven false, everyone starts tripping over one another pointing fingers saying "Well, 'so-and-so' reported it, so we assumed it was true."
When I think of all the time people all over the US wasted worrying about, writing about or bitching about Mick Foley being taken off the Time poll, I just shake my head. Get a grip, folks. When you hear things like that, first ask yourself whether it could really be true and then ask yourself, if it is true, does it really matter?
Let's review this list of things that thousands of people wasted time worrying about because a "credible source" had stated it, and get some historical perspective:
- Matt Borne is dead!
- Craig Pittman is dead!
- Lex Luger has steroid-induced cancer!
- The Outsiders were killed in a car accident!
- Fit Finlay has lung cancer!
- Alex Wright dead from a brain aneurysm!
- Rick Rude has testicular cancer!
- Mick Foley taken off Time Magazine poll! Another slap to the face of wrestling fans!
So, next time you are in an AOL chat room and someone tells you Arn Anderson has died in a skydiving accident, don't lose any sleep over it, OK?
- I did get one response back from Rafael T. In Notre Dame, Indiana, about Archie Moore's last opponent. He says that he saw a couple of articles that referred to Mike DiBiase as a wrestler, so it seems likely that Archie Moore's last official opponent was actually Ted DiBiase's dad. Well, anyway, I think that it's interesting.
- Trivia Answer: "Magnum", presumably due to his resemblance to Magnum P.I.
