Wrestling With Shea Stadium History

[G-Fafif]

Miami Herald recalls the night Shea was the mecca of the skewed, square circle of professional wrestling.

[metirish]

Some results from that night of wrestling at Shea , some baseball siblings.

] Other results: The Hangman beat Rene Goulet. Ivan Putski beat Johnny Rodz. Angel Marvilla beat Jose Estrada. Beverly Slade and Kandy Maloy beat Fabulous Moolah and Peggy Lee. Dominic DeNucci beat Baron Scicluna. Greg Gagne beat Rick McGraw. Pat Patterson beat Tor Kamata. WWF Junior Heavyweight champ Tatsumi Fujinami beat Chavo Guerrero Sr.

[seawolf17]

Doesn't look like a wrestler.

[MFS62]

Well, there WAS a wrestler way back when I followed wrestling (50's)named Verne Gagne. Maybe it was a flash-back typo.

Later

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Ah, "The Unpredictable" Johnny Rodz. He was very predictable: He always lost!

He represented the "heel jobber" -- the "faces" would wrestle him and defaet him so as to establish their character. His counbterpart was "Special Delvery" Jones, who was a good guy who never won.

[Fman99]

I remember S.D. Jones.

[metirish]

Bucket seems like an expert on this .

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Fman99 wrote: I remember S.D. Jones.

I remember he had a bullet wound in his back.

[HahnSolo]

MFS62 wrote: Well, there WAS a wrestler way back when I followed wrestling (50's)named Verne Gagne. Maybe it was a flash-back typo. Later

Greg Gagne (the wrestlers)
was Vern Gagne's son

[Guest AG/DC]

Wrestling is a clanny world.

[Vic Sage]

Ivan Putski. Chief Jay Strongbow. Haystacks Calhoun. Bruno Sammartino. Stan Hansen. Sgt Slaughter. Jimmy Snuka. Rick Martel.

yup, i remember those guys. the early days of the WWF. Before Hulk Hogan showed up and everybody went "hollywood".

[G-Fafif]

There was a predecessor league, at least in terms of what was on Channel 9 when I was in sixth going into seventh grade. The IWF I think it was: Mil Mascaras was world champ. Dick "The Bulldog" Browser was North American champ (which I couldn't figure out since wasn't North America part of the world?). Ivan Koloff was the Soviet bad guy du jour. Mighty Igor was the crowd favorite, munching on a kielbasa en route to destroying opponents. Ernie Ladd, the old AFLer, had become a villain. Some guy named Tex teamed up with him for a tag-team steel cage match which was surprising since Tex was a good guy...but Ernie ended up double-crossing him (poor Tex). It was during this brief flirtation with professional wrestling, undertaken for the same reason I started watching "Happy Days" (so I wouldn't be left out of 12-year-old water cooler talk) that I learned the phrases "foreign object" and "mid-section". It was also then, 1975, when professional sports leagues were blossoming everywhere (WHA, WFL, NASL, a lacrosse league before it seemed plausible) so I didn't think anything unusual of professional wrestling.

Though upon reflection, the way chairs could be cracked over wrestlers' heads while referees' backs were turned...that didn't seem quite kosher. Then again, neither did the kielbasa.

[Guest AG/DC]

I just hope the Coundown Like It Oughta Be remembers the New York Apollo/United, their legendary coach Rodney Marsh, and the dozens of fans they drew to Shea in the Torre era.