The Wrestling Collector Store

Saturday September 26th I was in Parsippany, New Jersey for the 2026 Atlantic APCO Conference, which runs from the 27th to 30th, however my team and I drove won to the conference from Maine, and with the approaching Nor'easter we headed down on Friday to avoid the storm.

That left me with all day Saturday to do some exploring, and that I did.  My team member Jessica and I first went to New Jersey Horror Con because Betsy Baker and Theresa Tilly, two of the 3 ladies of the Evil Dead movie were supposed to be there, however after paying admission, found out one was sick so they both cancelled.  As we already paid we spent some time taking in the vendors and I picked up a couple small things.  There were a lot of celebrities there, but no one I wanted the meet that I hadn't met before.

We then headed north to Stockholm, New Jersey and The Wrestling Collector!  I had first learned about it on Facebook, and a couple months back Matt Cardona and Brian Meyers of the Major Figures Podcast filmed a vlog at the store for their YouTube page.

It's not a huge store but it is jammed with wrestling collectibles and memorabilia.  The owner of the store, Tommy Ferrero, is also the promoter for the ISPW: Independent Superstars of Pro Wrestling promotion, which has been running shows in 1998.  He was not there as his mother was running the shop.

There is stuff stacked all over the place, when you walk in on the right side he has a small museum display of ring worm memorabilia.  This is also where everything that is signed if located.  Figures, posters, 8 x 10's and anything else with a signature.

To the left of the entrance is a side room with magazine, programs, VHS, DVD's, wrestling figures, books and more.  I would say 75% of what was in the shop was WWF / WWE, which makes sense as we are right in the heart of the WWF's territory. 

I was in there for almost an hour and a half looking through everything.  I did picked out a few things that I bought, I tried to be reasonable because there was so much stuff I would have liked to pick up, but it would be just buying stuff to buy stuff.  

I felt some of the prices were reasonable and others not so much, but that's just my opinion.  All VHS were $15, all DVD's were $10, Magazines and Programs were $10 or as marked, all books were $20, and loose figures were anything from $5 to $20 depending on the figure.  In package were as marked, and then there was a bunch of stuff not marked and she had to call him to ask what he wanted.

This right here I was extremely tempted to buy, it was The Wrestling Album, and when I was 6 years old my Dad got me this exact thing for Christmas.  It was unique because the packaging was record album size but for a cassette tape.  They were asking $60, and I almost pulled the trigger on it.

What I think is unique about the program was the paper insert inside.  WWF used to print a generic program to use at multiple venues and shows, and they would include a paper insert with the date, location, and card for the night.  This particular insert was for Madison Square Garden the night Bob Backlund lost the WWF Championship to Diesel.

I had this video game for the original Nintendo, this copy was original sealed.  I have no idea what they were asking for it.

There was so many programs and posters for Madison Square Garden and the New York and New Jersey area.  I looked as all the MSG programs and I decided if they had one with someone on the cover that I could get signed I would pick it up, sadly everyone featured had passed away.

After much deliberation this is what I decided to pick up:

My favorite wrestling to go back and watch is Jim Crockett Promotions 1983 - 1988, to me it's just the best!  This VHS is the 1988 Great American Bash PPV from July 10, 1988 in Baltimore.  This would be the last PPV under the Jim Crockett Promotions banner and the next PPV Starrcade was after the sale to Ted Turner.  I also have the program to this event signed by Ric Flair and Lex Luger.

First is a WWF program from featuring Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda that I feel confident that I can get signed.  The second is a special look at "Mr. USA" Tony Atlas, as he lives in Maine and I see him several times a year I know I will get this signed.  The Tony Atlas program had the paper insert for September 21, 1981 at Madison Square Garden.

Along with the Tony Atlas program was this Poster, which is in rough shape, but is pretty cool.  I'll get Tony to sign this as well.  The last photo is for size reference on the poster.

I had a pretty awesome time at The Wrestling Collector store.  I coupe things I do which I had picked up, and I just might have time to scoot back up before I head home on Wednesday.

You can read all about my trip to New Jersey for the 2026 Atlantic APCO Conference here.

Here is the video from Major Figures Podcast of their tour of the shop.

Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page.  You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book the 2024 Limitless Wrestling Almanac, or any of my other books.

Until next time! 

Wrestling Matches the Day I was Born

My buddy Brandon was born on November 24, 1983 which is the same day as the inaugural Starrcade event.  I've known about this for a long time and I've wonder from time to time what wrestling shows, if any, were happening the day I was born, I mean there's no way it was as good as Starrcade 1983, but I was born on a Sunday and there had to be a show or two going on that day.

So I took to Cagematch and searched June 24, 1979 and found 7 shows across the US, 1 in Canada and 1 in Japan, let's take a look.

IWE Big Summer Series 1979, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan

Main event saw Alexis Smirnoff & Ox Baker defeat Great Kusatsu & Isamu Teranishi

Maple Leaf Wrestling, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Ontario Canada

7 match card with a huge double main event, other matches featured Ernie Ladd, Ricky Steamboat, Paul Orndorff, Jim Brunzell, Jay Youngblood and more

NWA Canadian Heavyweight Champion: Dino Bravo defeat NWA United States Champion: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair by disqualification WWF Champion Bob Backlund defeated Greg "The Hammer" Valentine.  

AWA: American Wrestling AssociationTelevision Taping, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Matches featuring Jesse Ventura, Billy Robinson, The Blonde Bombers: Pat Patterson & Ray Stevens in tag team action, and Greg Gagne defeated AWA World Heavyweight Champion: Nick Bockwinkel

AWA: American Wrestling Association, Minneapolis Auditorium, Minnesota

select matches from the card that night include

Pat Patterson defeats Doug Gilbert

Jesse Ventura vs. Paul Elering - Draw

Greg Gagne defeats Ray Stevens by DQ

Billy Robinson & Verne Gagne defeat Bobby Duncum & AWA World Heavyweight Champion: Nick Bockwinkel

NWA Western States, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dick Murdoch & Giant Baba defeat Blackjack Mulligan & James J. Dillon

NWA Big Time Wrestling, Sportatorium, Dallas, Texas

main event: Andre The Giant & Bruiser Brody defeated Gary Hart, Mark Lewin & The Spoiler

GCW: Georgia Championship Wrestling, Cobb County Civic Center, Marietta, Georgia

Genichiro Tenryu wrestled on the show and other matches included:

Wahoo McDaniel defeating The Masked Superstar

Ivan Koloff & Ole Anderson vs. Stan Hansen & Tommy Rich wrestled to a no contest

WWF: World Wrestling Federation, Civic Center, Wheeling, West Virginia

matches included 

Ted DiBiase defeated Baron Mikel Scicluna by DQ

WWF Tag Team Champions: The Valiant Brothers: Jerry Valiant & Johnny Valiant defeated Haystacks Calhoun & Ivan Putski by Count Out

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling: Roanoke Civic Center, Roanoke, Virginia

this Jim Crockett Promotions card featured matches with Pedro Morales, Johnny Weaver, Len Denton, and title matches

Mid Atlantic Heavyweight Champion: Ken Patera defeated Rufus R. Jones

NWA World Tag Team Champions: Baron von Raschke & Paul Jones defeat Jimmy Snuka & Tony Atlas

Of all the shows that happened on my birthday that I found on my birthdate the Maple Leaf Gardens card is the show I would want to see the most.  We got both a Ric Flair match as well as Bob Backlund defending the WWF Championship and it was at the historic Maple Leaf Gardens. 

I remember when my daughter was born I was watching WWECW on Sci-Fi when her mother alerted my that her water had broken, however Addison was born the next day.  I looked up my 3 kids and the number of shows on one of them was shocking

Canaan January 18, 2006: 6 shows

Addison May 13, 2009: 6 shows

Wesley March 21, 2015:122 shows...122!!

Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page.  You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book the 2024 Limitless Wrestling Almanac, or any of my other books.

Until next time!

My Great American Bash 1988 Program

On July 10, 1988 the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland was the site of The Great American Bash, the final Jim Crockett Promotions pay-per-view event.  On this day, the 36th Anniversary of the event I thought it would be a great time to share, in depth, the original program from this event that I acquired at WrestleCon during mania weekend this year. 

Rolling into day 2 of WrestleCon this year, April 6th, I was slated to get a 1991 Impel WCW Card of the Four Horsemen signed by SID and Ric Flair.  This card features, Barry Windham, SID, Ric Flair, & Arn Anderson.  I had Arn sign it on June 10, 2022 at a Big Time Wrestling show in Webster, MA.

Barry Windham was supposed to sign the card in March of this year at the Wrestling Classic, however due to a Spring snowstorm his flight was cancelled.  They did do a private signing make up in June, however It was not announced until May.

That morning I get to the hall and look for SID and he is not at his table.  I ask the handlers there who tell me that SID cancelled last minute.  I had heard rumors that SID was a frequent no show or last minute cancellation type guy.  Not wanting to waste the $79 Ric Flair signature I pre-paid for I didn't want him to sign this card, trouble is I didn't bring anything else.  So the hunt was on to find something else for Flair to sign and quickly.  

I started searching around at vendor tables looking for Wonderama Trading cards and I found one, but it's Michael Hayes slamming Flair, why would I want Flair to sign that?  I mean if Hayes had signed it, sure, but not Flair first.  I was stressing hard.

I got in line for Flair, ended up in line for over 2 hours.  I tried to sell my Flair ticket, but didn't have any luck there.  I was frustrated because it's $79 for Flair to sign something and I wasn't happy with what I was getting signed.  The vendor that I bought the card from also had an original Great American Bash 1988 Program for $60.  I just didn't want to spend more money as I had spent quite a bit already.

Ultimately, I wasn't happy with the card, I love Jim Crockett Promotions and this is an original and official piece of JCP merchandise.  My favorite wrestling to watch is JCP from 1984 - 1988 and I love the Great American Bash tours, this was the last one under the JCP banner, also this was the first ever Great American Bash PPV and the last ever Crockett PPV.  My buddy Bradford watched my place in line and I ran back upstairs and bought it.

As I neared the front of the line many people saw what I was getting signed and that it was a cool piece to get signed.  Flair even remarked how nice it was.  After getting Flair to sign it I decided to spent another $60 to have Lex Luger sign it as he and Flair wrestled in the main event on the show.  He too thought it was a beautiful piece and talked about the match.  I've met Luger twice and both times he couldn't have been a nicer guy.

I debated having others at WrestleCon who appeared on the show sign the program as well, Arn Anderson and The Rock n' Roll Express, but then I thought, no I can't get everyone on the show to sign it, and they way Flair and Luger signed it, it was too perfect.  I couldn't be happier with how this piece turned out.

 

My plan is to frame it and hang it, however I'm going to share all the pages of the inside of the program at the end of this post.

Great American Bash 1988 Results

July 10, 1988 Baltimore Arena, Maryland

NWA World Tag Team Champions: "Enforcer" Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard with JJ Dillon wrestled Sting and "The Russian Nightmare" Nikita Koloff to a 20 minute time limit draw

The Midnight Express: "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton & "Sweet" Stan Lane with Jim Cornette defeated NWA United States Tag Team Champions: The Fantastics: Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers to win the championships

Tower of Doom Match: The Road Warriors: Hawk & Animal, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, "Rugged" Ronnie Garvin, and Jimmy "Jam" Garvin with Precious defeated Al Perez, "Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff, Kevin Sullivan, "Captain" Mike Rotunda, and The Russian Assassin with Gary Hart and "Mr. Number 1" Paul Jones

NWA United States Champion: Barry Windham with JJ Dillon defeated "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes

NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair with JJ Dillon defeated "The Total Package" Lex Luger by referee stoppage

Check out all of my posts from our wrestling trip to Philly

More Than Mania Philadelphia Adventure

More Than Mania Rasslin Photos

More Than Mania Mike with Friends and Rasslers!

More Than Mania Signed Cards

More Than Mania Wrestling Results

Read a blog post I wrote about The Great American Bash in general in 2017. 

Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page.  You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book the 2024 Limitless Wrestling Almanac, or any of my other books.

Until next time!

The Rock n' Roll Express: The Most Prolific Tag Team of All Time

A week ago my buddy texted me and said "Name the team that wrestled for the WWE, WCW, ECW, TNA, and Smoky Mountain Wrestling"  I responded The Rock n' Roll Express, turns out he was talking about the Insane Clown Posse.  This lead to a conversation about where the Rock n Rolls had wrestled and he said, "This was less fun than I anticipated"  I disagreed because I thought it was a fantastic conversation, we both learned something new and I got me thinking.

While the Rock N' Rolls didn't wrestle as a team in ECW, Ricky Morton did wrestle for the promotion.

Recently my friends and I were discussing how Sting and Jeff Jarrett are the law two active wrestlers on national television in a major company that really came from the territory system.  I remember the territory days when wrestlers traveled around from promotion to promotion, and my friends and I always kept track of wrestlers that succeed collecting championships along the way.

While I feel like FTR is the best tag team today, and there is an argument to be made that they are the best tag team of all time.  There is no doubt no one has had the run as a tag team like the Rock n' Roll Express.  They even wrestled once on a Big Time Wrestling Show.

The first time Ricky and Robert teamed together was not as the Rock n' Roll Express.  On April 21, 1980 for the CWA: Continental Wrestling Association, at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee Ricky Morton & The Gibson Brothers: Ricky and Robert teamed to defeat Danny Davis and The Blonde Bombers: Larry Latham & Wayne Ferris.  They did wrestler a few tag team matches through the rest of 1980.

In 1983 Jerry "The King" Lawler officially teamed them together anointing them The Rock n' Roll Express in the CWA, who knew 41 years later they would still be rocking and rolling together.

The Rock n' Rolls were a product of the territory system wrestling all around the NWA territories from 1983 - 1988, including CWA, Mid-South Wrestling, Houston Wrestling, Central States Wrestling, Championship Wrestling from Florida, Jim Crockett Promotions / Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, and the Universal Wrestling Federation. 

 

In JCP they help the NWA World Tag Team Championships 4 times and were embroiled with high profile matches and feuds all through those hot 1985 - 1988 years.  

On December 13, 1988 they main evented the the AWA: American Wrestling Association's on PPV: Super Clash III battling the Stud Stable to a double count-out.  The most memorable match from that show is Jerry Lawler defeated Kerry Von Erich to unify the AWA and World Class World Championships by referee stoppage, but that was not the main event of the card, the Rock N' Rolls were.

Other independent promotions they competed in included the USWA sporadically from 1989 -1996, SMW: Smoky Mountain Wrestling From 1992 - 1995 where they captured the tag team championships 8 times and OVW: Ohio Valley Wrestling in 1999.  

In 1993 while representing Smoky Mountain Wrestling they challenged for the SMW Tag Team Championships wrestling The Heavenly Bodies at WCW SuperBrawl III on February 21st in Asheville, NC.  A few months later they lost the SMW Tag Team Championships to The Heavenly Bodies at the WWF Survivor Series November 24, 1993 at the Boston Garden.

They wrestled several house show matches for the WWF in 1993 & 1994, returning in 1998 for the NWA invasion angle competing at WrestleMania 14.  In 2017 they were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.  Their only matches in Germany and Austria we in 1994 with the WWF. 

They joined WCW: World Championship Wrestling in 1990, Gibson was injured keeping him out of action for a couple years and Morton stayed on Wrestling heel for a spell in WCW.  The returned to the promotion in 1996 wrestling the Horsemen and challenging Harlem Heat for the Tag Team Championships.

Since the year 2000 they have competed for multiple promotions with stand outs being NWA TNA in 2003, several New Japan Pro Wrestling US shows in 2019 & 2020, Ring of Honor, GCW: Game Changer Wrestling, and the Billy Corgan promoted NWA where they captured the World Tag Team Championships for a 9th time. 

While they have not had matches in AEW: All Elite Wrestling, they have appeared on multiple occasions were attacked by FTR on Dynamite and got involved in the Young Bucks vs. Proud and Powerful match from Full Gear 2019. 

In Japan 

In 1988 they wrestled for All Japan they competed in the Super Power Series in May and returned for the Giant Series tour in October.  In the AWA the challenged Bad Company for the companies Tag Team Championships.

In July of 1993 and November of 1994 they toured the Japanese promotion WAR: Wrestling and Romance. 

In May 1996 toured FMW: Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling. 

There is no other team that has teamed longer than the Rock n' Rolls, appeared in more major promotions, and no other team has had the staying power that Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson have had.

I've had the pleasure of seeing the Rock n' Roll Express wrestle live twice.  In 1998 at WrestleMania 14 and in 2019 in Lowell, MA at New Japan Pro Wrestling.  In I've seen Ricky Morton wrestle live twice at shows here in Maine with his son Kerry Morton.  In 2006 I met the Rock N' Rolls at Carson's Pro Wrestling World in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

I'm extremely excited to see the Rock n' Rolls Wrestle once again at Joey Janela's Spring Break 8 in Philadelphia this year!

Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page.  You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book Limitless Wrestling: The First Five Years, or any of my other books as well.  

Until next time! 

What Qualifies As A World Heavyweight Championship?

What makes a championship in wrestling a World Championship?  When I was a kids Pro Wrestling Illustrated was the premier wrestling news source for me and I always agreed with their recognition of the World Championship.

A Tweet from April 3, 2020 Pro Wrestling Illustrated currently recognizes four World Championships WWE World Championship, the WWE Universal Championship, the AEW World Heavyweight Championship, and the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship.

For PWI the criteria is that it's actively defended around the world against high quality opponents.  Which makes sense.  At the same time though with a championship like the NWA World Championship has an internet show that is available around the world and is accessible to everyone.  During this current title run aside from the United States, Aldis has defended the championship in the UK multiple times and Canada.  Shouldn't it still be considered a World Championship?

Historically PWI recognized:

NWA World Heavyweight Championship 

July 14, 1948 - January 11, 1991

May 8, 2006 - May 13, 2007

AWA World Heavyweight Championship 

August 16, 1960 - December 12, 1990

WCW World Heavyweight Championship 

January 11, 1991 - December 9, 2001

ECW World Heavyweight Championship 

July 6, 1999 - April 11, 2001

June 13, 2006 - February 16, 2010

World Heavyweight Championship WWE Big Gold

September 2, 2002 - December 15, 2013

TNA World Heavyweight Championship

May 13, 2007 - August 1, 2015

I haven't always agreed with PWI when it came to it's World Championship recognition.  For instance the ECW World Championship, they didn't give it recognition until six months into Taz's title reign.  The company had, had PPV's for years by then and had a national syndicated show and rabid fan base.

Other promotions call their title a World Heavyweight Championship including PWG, Progress, CZW, even my home promotion Limitless Wrestling calls their championship a World Championship.

Limitless Wrestling has a huge following on YouTube with 685 Thousand subscribers.  Their video of Kris Statlander vs. Christian Casanova has 41 million views, they have 28 other videos that have anywhere from 1 million to 32 millions views each.  MJF, their first champion, defended it in the United Kingdom.  Is this sufficient criteria?

With all this being said I'm still looking for the answer to the question.  What is the criteria that qualifies a title to be considered as a World Heavyweight Championship?

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment, read my other posts, and like my blogs Facebook page and while you're at it check out my weekly podcast The Wrestling Insomniac on the Nerdy Legion Podcast Network. 

Until next time!