Old wrestlers

[Chainsaw]

Just so the American fans know, Giant Haystacks was not Haystacks Calhoun, Giant was much bigger, am I right Boris? Not sure of the other two though.
Those old fair, civic center, highschools or Studio matches were some of the best! Anywhere's from 20 to 200 hundred fans crammed into a small building! These guys no a days have no clue to the real excitement of being dragged into the wresters world. most of the small local local promotions still offer this type of excitement though and I would prefer this type of venue any day of the week! I urge any of you to check out your local wrestling scene. Here's a good hint: If it says WWE go the other way! Most of the smaller promotions charge less than $20.00, offer 2 to 3 hours of excitement and bring it into the crowds! I love the little old lady marks the best. I mark for my friend and a couple of his buddies when we go to his promotion. It's very cool to start things up!

Isn't the old Cumberland more shoot fighting style? I've read old articles about Steven Regal being a Shoot fighter for the traveling/carnival type wrestling whe he first got started. I wrestled in a couple of these types of shows. The WWA had a champion you could challenge at the local fairs. His name was Greg Wojokowski (spelling?) he wrestled as the Great Wojo. He was a alternate for one of the U.S. olympic teams. I wrestled hin on two different occassions. The first one he beat the crap outta me. The second time he found a whole new way to ..... BEAT THE CRAP OUTTA ME!!!!

 

[Chainsaw]

Cool! Hope you can connect with the Derby Queens.

FYI, Roller Derby has taken off over here, recently. There are a bunch of young women who've taken on the sport and while it's not yet at the standard of the old-school pro jammers, they put on a great show.

Have a great weekend.

Over on the FreakBike board (http://www.freakbikenation.com) we've got some Derby chicks from Florida. Give them a check out. It's best to do a search of the board to find all the threads they've been in. TIII and the Florida Freaks have had their bikes shown at several of the derby matches. Here in Michigan, we've got a team, I think it's outta Grand Rapids.

 

[tikiharl]

Hey Chainy, I used to be a bro in law to Dan Severens brother Dave. A mountain of a man. He wrestled for ASU and now he and his wife run a girls wrestling school here in Phoenix.The guy was a gentle giant. His two sons both played football for Montana state,and the daughter was a wrestling champ here locally.

I remember Wahoo Mc Daniel when I was a kid. He was always in full war dress.
I went to one wrestling match early 80s. It was a 18 man battle royale. All the little guys went after Andre,Hulk and then fought it out amongst themselves.

 

[aka_locojoe]

Never was in to wrestling although I do recognize some of the names of the older ones.

Roller Derby is making a comeback here also. I say comeback. I don't know if it was ever here before.

 

[mopedrodder]

Hey Chainsaw, thanks for the heads up on freakbike nation. Looks like a pretty crazy site. Since we've got a wet weekend comin' up in NZ, and as the woman in my life sells real estate and weekends are her busiest time, I'll be sticking myself in the garage and working on my CZ classic sickel racer project. (What else does one do with a bunch of old motorsickel parts collecting dust round the shed?)

Have a good'n (weekend and/or woman) yourself.

 

[spinman]

I saw Bruno Sammartino and Pedro Morales at the Philly Spectrum in the early '70s gooing for the title. Back then, Vince Mcmahan was a nobody annoucer on UHF TV (17, 29 or 48). They had George the Animal, Pampero Firko, Chief jay Strongbow, Ivan Putski.

Great times!!

 

[Chainsaw]

Hey Chainy, I used to be a bro in law to Dan Severens brother Dave. A mountain of a man. He wrestled for ASU and now he and his wife run a girls wrestling school here in Phoenix.The guy was a gentle giant. His two sons both played football for Montana state,and the daughter was a wrestling champ here locally.

I remember Wahoo Mc Daniel when I was a kid. He was always in full war dress.
I went to one wrestling match early 80s. It was a 18 man battle royale. All the little guys went after Andre,Hulk and then fought it out amongst themselves.

Dave Severens! Haven't heard that name in a long time. Never knew him but I remember some of my freestyle wrestling buddies talking about him back in high school.

Wahoo was cool. He was kinda slowing down when he came to Flint and wrestled in Georgia Championship wrestling, part of the old NWA. Do you remember when he teamed with Billy Jack Haynes in the Washington/ Oregon are? I think it was called Northwest territories but I could be wrong.
i shook hands with Andre once at one of the old Allstars of Wrestling shows. My hand disappeared in his!

 

[Chainsaw]

Never was in to wrestling although I do recognize some of the names of the older ones.

Roller Derby is making a comeback here also. I say comeback. I don't know if it was ever here before.

Sounds like this could be the next step in the evolution of locojoe! Put on the jammer helmet Randy!

 

[Chainsaw]

Hey Chainsaw, thanks for the heads up on freakbike nation. Looks like a pretty crazy site. Since we've got a wet weekend comin' up in NZ, and as the woman in my life sells real estate and weekends are her busiest time, I'll be sticking myself in the garage and working on my CZ classic sickel racer project. (What else does one do with a bunch of old motorsickel parts collecting dust round the shed?)

Have a good'n (weekend and/or woman) yourself.

:shock: CZ! :shock: Pics! All and Any! Better yet, Let's start a thread on old Dirt bikes. Follow me and eloborate on this here CZ you talk about!

 

[Chainsaw]

I saw Bruno Sammartino and Pedro Morales at the Philly Spectrum in the early '70s gooing for the title. Back then, Vince Mcmahan was a nobody annoucer on UHF TV (17, 29 or 48). They had George the Animal, Pampero Firko, Chief jay Strongbow, Ivan Putski.

Great times!!

Your talking legends! Pedro wasn't a real favorite of mine but the rest made for a great card! Was that when Pedro lost or won the title?
George the Animal was a high school gym teacher in, I think in Madison Heights Michigan. Not to sure if he's still around but about 8 years ago he was still shoping up at some of our areas local shows and wrestling. I worked with a guy who had him as a gym teacher. He said that outside the gym George was a real nice guy but in the gym you'd most likely get a dodgeball upside the head! I think his real name was Jim but I can't remember his last name.

 

[mopedrodder]

Hey Chainsaw, thanks for the heads up on freakbike nation. Looks like a pretty crazy site. Since we've got a wet weekend comin' up in NZ, and as the woman in my life sells real estate and weekends are her busiest time, I'll be sticking myself in the garage and working on my CZ classic sickel racer project. (What else does one do with a bunch of old motorsickel parts collecting dust round the shed?)

Have a good'n (weekend and/or woman) yourself.

:shock: CZ! :shock: Pics! All and Any! Better yet, Let's start a thread on old Dirt bikes. Follow me and eloborate on this here CZ you talk about!

Will do, Bro. I'll crank off a pic of my CZ armadni (military model) which is based on one of the Czech's Australasian farm models, which itself was based on the model 470 off-road bike, albeit with 16" wheels. The project basically has taken the best bits from two bikes, including an 18"(rr) and 19" (ft) wheel set up, khaki paint job (cheaper than the cost of rechroming everything!) and a restored seat. I've just got to get a couple of bits and pieces to finish the reassembly and she's ready to go...

...the racer project is all the bits I have left over! :lol: I'm going to build a full-out two-smoke engine (found an crankcase compression plate from an engine I pulled apart 15 years ago, amongst other trick goodies) and find someone half my weight to road race the damned thing. Just got back from a 25 mile round trip on the Vespa Kustom to pick up some primer/surfacer to paint the frame (the local branch 2 miles up the road were out of the stuff). As the forecast is for more rain, I guess I'll be doing a bit of (paint) gunslingning in the morning.

I've had a lot of Czechoslovak sickels and scooters over the last 19 or so years and they've been a lot of fun, and like all rat-rides, cheap and dependable. I had Milwaukee Iron in my misspent youth and hate to admit that the small-bore stuff I ride now is a lot more fun. Will see what pics I have of the Prague Potmetal I've owned over the years and post them as well. Cheers 8)

 

[Chainsaw]

Thanks, I'll spend so time Czeching themall out! :lol:

 

[Boris]

WoW Chainsaw! You realy know your wrestling! Your right about Giant Haystacks, he was massive way, way over 6ft, prob about 20 stone and the proper bad guy!! I used to really enjoy the 'tag' matches the most, they where mental! And your right all those old matches where held in small local halls etc! Cheers for the link to 'freakbike nation' mint.

Also mopedrodder, I used to have an old CZ175 the gear lever became the kick starter? it was bright yellow and the reason why my right knee and bits of my elbow are black, coal dust stuck under the skin from when i fell off on the old 'slag' heaps where i used to ride it

 

[mopedrodder]

WoW Chainsaw! You realy know your wrestling! Your right about Giant Haystacks, he was massive way, way over 6ft, prob about 20 stone and the proper bad guy!! I used to really enjoy the 'tag' matches the most, they where mental! And your right all those old matches where held in small local halls etc! Cheers for the link to 'freakbike nation' mint.

Also mopedrodder, I used to have an old CZ175 the gear lever became the kick starter? it was bright yellow and the reason why my right knee and bits of my elbow are black, coal dust stuck under the skin from when i fell off on the old 'slag' heaps where i used to ride it

Yeah, Boris, the Czech bikes had the gearchange/kick start combo - the 2-stroke Jawas still do (CZ died after Cagiva bought the biz and then went bust). Like the auto declutching mechanism, it was a practical piece of engineering.

I had a yellow, one-owner '72 CZ 175 in about 1991. A great little bike that I used to rally regularly. Sure was a lot different from the Hogs I ride in my misspent youth (and much more dependable!)