Anyone into WWF (or WWE or WCW)???

[bob_meadows_167 1]

I'm not trying to knock the WWE style entertainment wrestling...but I never could get into it. I know there seem to be many wrestling fans into the sport...please share why you like "pro-wrestling" or take a stance on the subject...

[Swayz 163]

I will chime in before I have to head off to job #2 for the evening. I look at it this way, I was born in 1980 and it seemed that throughout the 80's it was the Hulkamania era. There were toys, cartoons and tons of televised shows of "pro wrestling". It sucked you in to see these "Super Hero types". It was pro wrestling that lead me to have interest in amateur form. Bob Backlund and Iron Sheik were both former wrestlers on the mats which I found out later. As I stuck it out on the amateur mats, I grew appreciation for WWE/WCW and other organizations because before the UFC/WEC and so on, those organizations would take interest and employ our amateur athletes. Heck in 2010 when I almost missed the birth of my son, I was at UNO''s DII National Championships and in the crowd actively recruiting was one of the Brisco brothers from the WWE, who back in his day was a decorated wrestler for Oklahoma State along with his brother. Danny Hodge and other greats had a venue to move on and support their families, and now people like Kurt Angle, Shelton Benjamin, and Jack Swagger (Jake Hager from OU) can entertain and make an honest living. Sell outs? I think not. Just using athletic talents for entertainment value now and making good money for it.

[JohnnyThompsonnum1 102]

Professional wrestling and the people in it have always been very supporting, appreciative and admiring of amateur wrestling. A large majority of professional wrestlers have amateur wrestling backgrounds. Not all of them were stand out stars, but many of them wrestled in high school.

 

Amateur wrestling, and many of the people in it have for the most part collectively always had a vendetta against professional wrestling. The reasons given will vary, but the reasons that are all come back to the same thing...professional wrestling is a performance.

 

I got into professional wrestling at a very early age back in the late 1980's. I fell in love with it and have always enjoyed it every since. It's how and why I got into amateur wrestling a few years later in the early 1990's. My Dad bought me an action figure of Scott Steiner that read on the package he came in that he was an All American amateur wrestler at Michigan. My Dad informed me that if I wanted to do pro wrestling someday, I had to learn amateur first. That's obviously not true, but I wasn't quite the expert everyone else here was when I was six years old.

 

I'd say more about it and might later on, but for now I'll leave it at that.

[JohnnyThompsonnum1 102]

I'm not trying to knock the WWE style entertainment wrestling...but I never could get into it. I know there seem to be many wrestling fans into the sport...please share why you like "pro-wrestling" or take a stance on the subject...

 

Professional wrestling is an entertainment, a performance by the way. It is an art, a form of theatre. It's not a sport. One of the reasons why it is so disrespected is because people view it for what it is not. It's a performance, not a sport.

[JohnnyThompsonnum1 102]

Well to get back to collegiate wrestling, in relation to professional wrestling does anyone here know where Dennis Stamp wrestled in college? He's talked about wrestling in high school and college before, but I've never heard him say where. I was once told that he wrestled at Central Oklahoma but I've never been able to varify it. Does anyone know?

[bob_meadows_167 1]

Great, thanks for the responses! I used to be the "I hate pro-wrestling" guy however recently, I just stepped back and said "why do people like this, maybe it's not so bad?" so I thought I would open the dialog in here.

[MadMardigain 1,637]

Well to get back to collegiate wrestling, in relation to professional wrestling does anyone here know where Dennis Stamp wrestled in college? He's talked about wrestling in high school and college before, but I've never heard him say where. I was once told that he wrestled at Central Oklahoma but I've never been able to varify it. Does anyone know?

 

 

 

Old school Dennis Stamp that was a Minn. State champ? If so I got his name coming up for NAIA Concordia College.

http://www.cord.edu/Athletics/men/wrestling/current/records.php

[Swayz 163]

Well to get back to collegiate wrestling, in relation to professional wrestling does anyone here know where Dennis Stamp wrestled in college? He's talked about wrestling in high school and college before, but I've never heard him say where. I was once told that he wrestled at Central Oklahoma but I've never been able to varify it. Does anyone know?

 

 

 

I only know of 2 former UCO Bronchos that wrestled that have been in the Pro Wrestling circuit, although I know 3 total alumns (friend of mine Stephen has been wrestling in Mid South in Memphis for last 10 years following UCO graduation).

 

I know Mo Lawal who would finish up at Oklahoma State his senior year, has just signed with TNA Wrestling and is going to do a cooperative deal if I recall to also fight in Bellator at the same time he is doing the Pro Wrestling.

 

I want to say Edwin Lorne a former Broncho National Champ played the roll of a hot dog vendor about 10 years ago on an episode of WWE Monday Night Raw, and got tossed into a wall by Kane. I may have the wrong UCO alumn on that one though.

[JohnnyThompsonnum1 102]

MadMardigain - Thanks for the information on Stamp. I've always wondered about his amateur background. WWE still does scout amateur wrestling for potential talent. Swayz talks about it in the past tense but they still do. They do it more under the rader, but they still do it. Boise State's Heavyweight from a few years back was telling me that he was recruited for a tryout following the PAC-10 tournament his senior year.

I know a guy that used to be a travel agent for the NWA from 1976-1989 and one of his jobs was to scout collegiate wrestling tournaments for talent as well.

 

Ric Flair has been quoted as saying that amateur wrestlers never make good professional wrestlers because of the vast contrast in what is being done. Yet, he turns around and says that Ricky Steamboat is the best professional wrestler that he was ever in the ring with. Ricky Steamboat, whose real name is Richard Blood, was a two time state qualifier in New York.

 

 

[TripNSweep 795]

I actually read Ric Flair's book and he said that guys who switch over from amateur wrestling come in with an attitude. Then he told the story about how the Iron Shiek ran his mouth to Billy Robinson who legitimately hurt him in training to prove a point. Back then the Shiek was in great shape and lapping everyone in training (supposedly) so that was kind of where the attitude came from, I guess his reasoning was he was better because he was doing all of the exercises so easily and guys like Ken Patera were struggling.

[ban_basketball 16]

As a kid, I grew up LOVING the old AWA, which was based in Minneapolis and St.Paul. Once McMahon and people like him came in to make the sport/business "too Hollywood," I lost interest in it by about 1990. I would also say that the days of the GREAT villians are long gone from wrestling, which is what made it great for me, and part of why I faded away from it as well. As long as I could remember I always held this as my motto for pro wrestling: "The more they're loved, the more I hate them. The more they're hated, the more I love them."

 

God bless the great villians of wrestling's past!

[papride 5]

I actually read Ric Flair's book and he said that guys who switch over from amateur wrestling come in with an attitude. Then he told the story about how the Iron Shiek ran his mouth to Billy Robinson who legitimately hurt him in training to prove a point. Back then the Shiek was in great shape and lapping everyone in training (supposedly) so that was kind of where the attitude came from, I guess his reasoning was he was better because he was doing all of the exercises so easily and guys like Ken Patera were struggling.

 

 

Ric Flairs son wrestled. He was in a buddy of mines bracket at Tournament of Champions one year in Columbus, Ohio. Flair was walking around signing autographs.

[BobDole 1,229]

I believe Flair's son wrestled for Blair. Wooooo!

[gimpeltf 2,085]

I believe Flair's son wrestled for Blair. Wooooo!

 

 

Fliehr, IIRC

[vsnej 199]

Watching channel 9 on saturdays in NJ during my formative years...

 

Bruno Sammartino

Gorilla Monsoon

Bobo Brazil

"Baron" Mikel Scicluna

Argentina Apollo

Arnold Skoland

Gordo Chihuahua

"Killer" Kowalski

Haystacks Calhoun

[Tofurky 633]

I loved wrestling until I began amateur wrestling in the late-1980s. I think because of the larger-than-life variety of characters and street fight-esque craziness going on each week, it was great to a kid who was all of 9 to 12 years old.After I focused on American folk wrestling, "professional" wrestling lost its luster for me and I haven't paid attention to it in decades.

 

There are a couple guys where I coach who are obsessed with professional wrestling. I keep telling them to tryout for something like that, but they claim that collegiate wrestling is more important to them. I can't really tell that it is.

[JohnnyThompsonnum1 102]

I'm not sure if it's public knowledge yet or not, and I don't want to get in trouble for saying something that shouldn't be said but there is currently a collegiate wrestler who will be a senior this season in DI that is vastly interested in getting into professional wrestling after he graduates this upcoming season.

[JohnnyThompsonnum1 102]

Not many professional wrestlers are real quick to talk about their amateur backgrounds, and it isn't because they're not proud of them either. Most guys I've talked with fear mentioning that they were amateur wrestlers, in fear of ridicule from the amateur wrestling community for "selling out". I think that's sad. I think that's very sad. As much as I love amateur wrestling and the people in it, that's the one thing that I don't. I don't like MMA/UFC, but I don't put down the guys who get into it and I don't ridicule the activity just because I don't care for it. I've voiced my opinion before why UFC/MMA fighters shouldn't be treated superior and professional wrestlers as inferior, but I've never dehumanized or demonized anyone for getting into MMA/UFC as some people on this board have those who have gotten into professional wrestling.

 

 

Talk of professional wrestling alone has no place here on these boards. However, neither does MMA/UFC alone. When speaking of professional wrestling or MMA/UFC in context to our high school, collegiate and international athletes then it deems appropriate as far as I'm concerned.

 

Just my opinion though.

[tec87 349]

I remember a video being posted a couple years ago of Jake Herbert who is a huge pro wrestling fan and it was a video of a pro wrestling match he had at some local show. I'm trying to find the video but if someone has it and can post it, that would be great.

[tec87 349]

Found it.

 

 

 

 

Very sloppy match but funny commentary and an incredible finishing move by Herbert. I guess this was actually a Northwestern University performance that students put on every year and this was from the first year they did it.

[JohnnyThompsonnum1 102]

Back in the 1980's Lennie Zalesky did a professional wrestling stint for a Central States show.

 

In more recent times two time All American Scott Coleman of Iowa State did a small stunt at a wrestling show of Harley Race's in Newton, Iowa.

[Tofurky 633]

The best part of that video was the announcer! "Jake Herbert, hero of the world! You know, a lot of people ask 'where did he learn his stuff?' It was all from me, the smartest guy in the world! I taught Jake how to wrestle, how to fight and how to make love to a woman! He didn't take my advice on the last one, but he's still really $*@#!^ strong!" That and what Jake says starting at 2:35.

 

Was this for some Northwestern comedy troupe? "I haven't seen hazing like this since our women's soccer team!" "And it looks like 10 freshman girls are safe tonight!"

 

 

Herbert is an absolute character and awesome for our sport!

[tec87 349]

The best part of that video was the announcer! "Jake Herbert, hero of the world! You know, a lot of people ask 'where did he learn his stuff?' It was all from me, the smartest guy in the world! I taught Jake how to wrestle, how to fight and how to make love to a woman! He didn't take my advice on the last one, but he's still really $*@#!^ strong!" That and what Jake says starting at 2:35.

 

Was this for some Northwestern comedy troupe? "I haven't seen hazing like this since our women's soccer team!" "And it looks like 10 freshman girls are safe tonight!"

 

 

Herbert is an absolute character and awesome for our sport!

 

This is what the wiki article on it said.

 

Wrestlepocalypse is an annual, devised production at Northwestern University. The show is cast before it is written and takes on the talents of over 45 collaborating performers, writers, and technicians to create the final production. What began as a theatrical experiment in 2007 has grown into a university-wide Dillo Eve tradition that draws on the talents of Northwestern students from across the campus. Every year, record numbers of students from every background try out for or attend the production, which makes it one of the furthest reaching student-run traditions at NU.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestlepocalypse

[Needles 1]

I also grew up watching AWA wrestling on Sunday mornings, New it was bogus but I enjoyed it anyways. As I got older and started to wrestle I took the party line stance that it was bad for amateur wrestling. I felt ilke I had to always defend our amateur sport. The best thing to happen to pro wrestling was for them to admit that it was strictly entertainment and not an athletic contest. I don't watch it anymore but my kids did as they grew up, and yes they new it was fake but found it entertaining as I did. The Jake Herbert vid was hillarious by the way.

[RhinoWrestler 0]

My wrestling coach in HS back in Michigan was George the Animal Steele. He coached at Madison HS outside Detroit for over 20 years back in the 60s/70s. Was also football coach. Coached Madison to a couple of state championships in the late 60s. Great guy and his WWF personality was a funny as there was.