#141 – Adrian Street v Randy Savage, January 28, 1985
This week on the show Dre and Black Cat finally get to a topic they’ve been wanting to discuss for a long time – Adrian Street. Adrian is an oft-forgotten but legendary performer who really defined the androgynous character in professional wrestling more than anyone else. They also review a great match between Street and the legendary Randy Savage. Please support the Old School Wrestling Podcast by visiting oldschoolwrestlingpodcast.com where you can find links to all of our great products. We now offer all of our box sets and bonus episodes from all three seasons on our premium digital download site. We’ll see you…..at the matches!
I’m listening on my iPad
Guys! Ever hear the name Georgeous George? The most legendary “gay” character in wrestling history? LoL
Solid point. Huge oversight not even mentioned George. I do feel like he’s obviously an influence if not the direct inspiration for Street, but also feel like Street deserves credit for taking it to the level he did.
Street definitely took it to the next level. Check out the street/dusty feud in Florida ’83
Some great promos by dusty
Where to begin? Bear with me…
When I was in college, I would search ebay for wrestling VHS tapes. One fateful day I purchased a lot of 8 tapes. Some labeled vaguely “Classic Matches #3”, others specifically labeled “Spectrum 1-27-1982”. Needless to say this was and continues to be a treasure trove of old school wrestling. All the tapes are territorial wrestling from the early 80’s. One of the more entertaining matches without question is this Street/Savage match. I can’t begin to tell you the glorious footage on these tapes. I would be happy to find a way to get them to you if you ever wanted to take a look. I bust out the ole VHS to this day specifically for these tapes.
Secondly, I must apologize. I was one of those fateful patrons on the French quarter who sat right next to you at the restaurant. I had already had Bourbon street’s “Holy Trinity” (Hurricane, Grenade, and Big Ass Beer”)and then some. I remember spending roughly 4 seconds thanking you for the OSWP before bringing up Arn Anderson’s injury. In hindsight, I should have waiting at least 2 minutes before jokingly chastising you.
All the best and thanks again for the great episodes!
I always loved the justification for Adrian Street in the predominantly southern/conservative areas: “He’s a weirdo, but dammit, he’s our weirdo.”
Great pick for a show guys. If you grew up in the late 70s and into the 80s Adrian Street was one of those mysterious wrestlers you’d see in wrestling magazines but never actually see wrestle. For me that group was Street-Kevin Sullivan-Mil Mascaras-Bruiser Brody-Sheik and Abdullah.Sometimes just to make it more mysterious you’d see pics of those guys wrestling each other in these matches that took place in some bizarro world Federation that I couldn’t even wrap my WWF and NWA filled brain around.At one time I had a wrestling game I bought from an ad in an Apter mag similar to stratomatic baseball and the Adrian Street card was always highly rated making him even more of a mystery.How could Vince not pick up this powerhouse? Now I kind of get the reason why.Gotta go reanimated Lou Thesz is chasing me demanding I bring him a medicine ball and an explanation of what the Sam hell twitter is.
Just went to Adrian Streets website and if I’m understanding it correctly to make a purchase from it I must first snail mail $5 to Linda Street which will then get me a catalog that Mrs Street will snail mail me and then I can fill out an order form and send my payment in the form of a check or money order that I will snail mail back and then the Streets will fill that order and mail me my stuff. An untapped market is apparently post wrestling career adult e commerce education.
The Street family website gave me the same headache I used to get watching my Grandpa try to set the clock on his VCR. There should be a permanently flashing 12:00 on their home page.Oh crap here comes reanimated Lou Thesz again. Hes shouting something about how they never improved on iodine and hes demanding we wake up Verne Gagne for an impromptu best of 11 falls match.
I cant let it go. How don’t they know the website is the catalog. How….don’t…..they…know.No I don’t have any Glenn Miller records or Ovaltine reanimated Lou Thesz.
How is it possible that how I paid for a wrestling card game 32+ years ago is the same way Id order and pay for an original Adrian Street oil painting? Goddamnit Adrian Street.Oh man now reanimated Lou Thesz is hiding money in my furniture because he doesn’t trust banks.
This might have been overthinking it a bit but I always thought that nobody ever mentioning Adorable Adrian Adonis lifting Streets whole gimmick was due to homophobia. You’d have to be familiar with both to discuss the blatant copy and nobody wanted to admit to being that aware of the similarities. At least not my meathead group of high school wrestling fan buddy’s. It was surprising the wrestling mags ignored it though, He copied the face paint,the hair and pretty much everything else except I think his Miss Linda was Jimmy Hart.
I laughed out loud at work when listening to the part surmising if Savage’s voice got stuck like that after Angelo warned if he kept it up, it would stay like that. Maybe Lanny wouldn’t stop talking in rhyme and was doomed from a young age.
I can’t believe you guys did not mention Gorgeous George. Also, you praised him on his ethics for allegedly refusing to be a racist character; but you don’t call him out on his homophobia. See this youtube clip interview if you need context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ0Q0uL3a0Q
I forgot to mention. You guys have an awesome podcast. I am about your age, and I love the amount of history you all know. I tune in to every new podcast. Keep up the good work.
It’s hard to believe that this match was in the mid 80’s as I thought it could have easily fit in the Attitude era. Adrian was playing the perfect heel, with Miss Linda being like an early prototype of Chyna.
With Adrian Street being a fellow Welshman, it was hard for me to go against him, so I was happy that it was a draw 😉 He also remindeds me of Zoolander, with both being flamboyant guys, who were the son of a miner.
Also, it was so strange seing Miss Elizabeth doing the pre match intro. She looks so young and spoke so well!
Oh, and according to Wikipedia, he was also known as the Nature Boy. That seems to be the most popular wrestling gimmick of all time.