Until next time!
Sunday, December 26, 2021
The Iron Sheik's WWF World Title Defenses
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Stan Stasiak's WWWF Championship Matches
Stan “The Man” Stasiak was a journeymen wrestler competing for 26 years from 1958 to 1984. He held numerous regional championships in the United States and his native Canada, however he only held a recognized world championship a single time for nine days in 1973. A transition champion he defeated the great Pedro Morales in and lost the title to the legendary Bruno Sammartino.
To my knowledge he only held defended the championship one time before dropping the strap to Bruno. The only footage I’m aware of Stasiak as champion is his title loss to Bruno which you can find on YouTube.
December 1, 1973 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Stan Stasiak pinned WWWF World Champion: Pedro Morales to win the title at 17:42 when all four men's shoulders were down following a back suplex from the champion; after the bout, Stasiak was not announced as the new champion for fear of a riot - rather the ring announcer simply said "Let's hear it for a great champion, Pedro Morales"; the title change was announced the following Saturday on television; Barney Solomon was the referee for the bout
December 4, 1973 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Championship Wrestling television taping
Aired December 8, 1973
Stan Stasiak was announced as champion for the first hour of tapings
December 5, 1973 Hamburg, Pennsylvania
All Star Wrestling television taping
Aired December 8, 1973
Stan Stasiak was announced as champion for the first hour of tapings
Photo from Shawn Stasiak's Twitter |
December 6, 1973 Worcester, Massachusetts
WWWF World Champion: Stan Stasiak fought Chief Jay Strongbow to a no contest
Until next time!
Saturday, December 11, 2021
No Way!? They Wrestled (Sting vs. The Undertaker)
I love obscure wrestling history and lately I've been invested in learning about matches that people tend to be surprised that happened (for example: Ultimo Dragon vs. The Macho Man). I thought it would be fun to highlight some of these matches and share them with the masses.
I think all wrestling fans of a certain age had an intense desire to see Sting and The Undertaker face-off against one another. It was certainly a dream match of mine. Of course, Sting was loyal to WCW and then eventually TNA. It wasn't until 2014 that it seemed like the match that so many of us wrestling fans from the 90's wanted was going to happen. Well... it didn't. Stings run in the WWE was a joke and two of the darkest superstars never faced off in an epic battle... or did they?
On September 1st, 1990 at the Greensboro Coliseum, The Undertaker, then known was Mean Marc Callous, challenged the NWA Heavyweight Champion Sting. Sting successfully defended his title and 2.5 months later, Mean Marc would debut as The Undertaker in the WWF.
Sadly no footage exists of this match and only a single picture has made it's way onto the internet. The two legends share the ring two days prior in a tag match where Sting and Lex Luger defeated Mean Marc and Moondog Rex.
Friday, December 3, 2021
It's Sting! A WrestleCade 2021 Moment
My buddy Jimmy and I found ourselves near the front of the line to meet Sting last Saturday morning. He walked in at 9:40 PM dressed in his ring gear and t-shirt and the crowd went nuts. He hyped everyone up and someone yelled, "What time is it?" and he responded, "Showtime, of course."
The lined move quickly as Sting power signed and posed with pictures. There was a concern that Sting may not make it through the massive line that had formed to meet him, but that wasn't an issue for us since we were so close to the front.
I'll be honest, it happened so fast I didn't even have a chance to speak. I wanted to tell Sting thanks for coming to AEW and tell him how much his feud with the nWo meant to me as a teenager, but by the time I walked up and shook his hand, I smiled and was on my way. My wife was kind enough to video tape the entire encounter which you can see here.
The photos were taken by the AML staff photographer and uploaded to Flickr five days after they were taken. I received simultaneous texts from Jimmy and Michael right as they were released and I'm quite thankful for that, because I still am not sure where they saw the announcement that they were ready!
I did some minor cropping, but I'm very happy with the photo. It wasn't the most interesting conversation or moment I had over the weekend, but I can say I've met Sting, the legend... The Icon and I'm so happy for it.
Monday, November 29, 2021
WrestleCade 2021 - A Brief Recap
In the past, I’ve done a complete in-depth review of the event, but this year I want to try something a little different. Over the next several days/weeks, I’m going to post Wrestlecade moments. Brief recaps of some of my favorite moments from this past Saturday.
But to be fair, I use blog entries like this to gauge whether or not I attend certain events, so I feel that I need to at least say a few things about how everything went.
The Good:
-The guests were broken into two rooms which allowed for more space and a better overall atmosphere. The guests were also featured in much larger rooms than the past which allowed for reasonable movement throughout the convention floor.
-Everyone was so nice. The wrestlers seem to be in even better spirits than the past and I had some many wonderful moments with almost everyone I encountered. I definitely left the event loving some of my favorite wrestlers even more which is always a good thing.
-I was able to meet everyone on my list but Malakai Black, and I probably could have met him but I just couldn’t commit to his incredibly long line. I heard lots of folks were upset who collected autographs because he only signed things “A B” or “M B.”
-I had front row seats for the SuperShow and this year they put your name on the seats for the first three rows! This was an incredible upgrade from the wild west chair roulette everyone played in the past.
The Bad:
-My main reason for coming to Wrestlecade was to meet Sting and sadly that encounter ended up being the worst moment of the day, no fault of Sting’s. Wrestlecade told folks to arrive at 8 AM due to the high demand for Sting, although he would not arrive till 10 AM. I got there at 7:50 AM and folks were already in line as early as 7:00 AM. Around 9:00 AM, the guy running the table announced for all preorders to line up which was ridiculous because a line of several hundred folks had already wrapped around the wall of the convention center. Folks flooded to the table leaving their space in line only to be rudely told that they “meant” Ultimate Icon pre-orders. Everyone scurried back to their original positions, irritated.
A few minutes later, he called for all remaining pre-orders and again, everyone broke from the line to get their paper tickets. After I got mine, I was told to line up against another wall, which would essentially be cutting everyone in line. I morally disagreed with this, so I returned to my original spot in line. Unfortunately, the other folks in line didn’t have the same values as I did and sudden a new line emerged that continued to grow and grow and I was pushed further and further to the back. At my wife’s behest, I went to get in the new line and ended up jumping in line with my buddy Jimmy.
More chaos ensued as people were turned away and despite saying all pre-orders it was only the Icon packages, somehow he missed that I didn’t have that. My wife got stuck outside the room and it got incredibly rowdy as the very rude guy in charge continued to fuck up a simple line so bad that it almost caused fist fights. I had to walk out of the room and grab my wife by the hand and drag her into the room past the guy in charge who rudely asked where we were going. Needless to say, it was an absolute clusterfuck and did not set a good first impression of the con. Thankfully, I was near the front and the line went fast. Do I feel like I got my $75 worth? No. We were ushered in and out very quickly, I had a moment to shake Sting’s hand and smile and I was sent off. We didn’t even get our pictures that day. Apparently they will be ready in 7-10 days and I’m guessing mass dumped onto Facebook.
Did I mention the guy running the Sting signing tried selling a $300 Sting jacket to all of us pissed off folks in line? Ugh
-As usual, a lack of staff was concerning. There were plenty of police officers, but not enough people to help guide folks into the proper lines. There were no signs, no barriers, and you were forced to fend for yourself. It was very easy to get into the wrong line due to the lack of assistance.
-The convention center has one ATM and it was out of cash by noon on Saturday. I expected more wrestlers to take cards than actually did, so I was forced to run a block over to find an ATM and grab some more cash. Not a major problem, just be sure to bring more than enough cash if you attend Wrestlecade and don’t rely on ATMs on site.
There are way too many photographers during the SuperShow and this may sound mean, but way too large of photographers. My view was constantly blocked as somewhere between three and five camera men and photographers jockeyed for a position. Not only did it give away all the cool spots, it also made it hard to actually see what was happening if it occurred on the mat. Look, I’m a big guy, and I’m all for everyone pursuing their passion, but if you want to be a ring photographer you need to be blend in with the ring some.
The text for The Bad is bigger than The Good, just because the Sting story needed context. Let me assure you, once I got past that one isolated incident the rest of the day went off without a hitch. I had an absolute blast and cannot wait to attend next year. I will be a bit more cautious with the special photo ops and I honestly don’t know if there is anyone outside of Sting that could bring me to ever deal with what I dealt with for his photo. Next year, I’ll just do the table side photos which is a lot more fun and gives you time to interact with the wrestlers.