#180 – Sgt Slaughter v Russian Assassin, Summer 1988, The County Fair
On the newest OSWP, Black Cat finally gets to tell the story of a match he’s been trying to find for almost 30 years! And he met Sgt. Slaughter with the Awesome 80s Podcast! Please support the OSWP by visiting our website at secondperiodindustriespresentstheoldschoolwrestlingpodcast.com and purchasing a box set, t-shirt, poster, or book!
ARCHIVED EPISODES AVAILABLE on the 7TH SEASON BOX SET IN MID-2018
Gents,
WIth one glaring exception, this one struck a real chord with me.
Black Cat’s history with this match had me sort of pining for those pre-teen nights spent at the local civic center watching wrasslin’. I always sort of assumed that most of the matches, results and imagery were documented in my memory, and nowhere else, but this episode inspired me to do a bit of deep Googling, and low and behold..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRi7gXZkkMg
So, I’m not exactly suggesting that anyone needs to attempt to sit through this match between The Warlord and Ron “The Yeah-taaaaayyyyyyyy” Reis but I just stumbled upon it online and was too excited not to share.
I was at this show as an 11 (or possibly 12) year-old. Killer Kowalski’s All-Star Wrestling used to run cards at my local civic center (Norwood, MA) once about every 4-5 months. While I got to the Garden for more than a few WWF events, these shows are the really some of my fondest wrasslin’-related memories. Just being able to walk up between matches and actually touch the ring…
The first show I caught was probably in late ’92. My obsession was wrestling was just starting to take shape and I’m pretty sure it was just about all that I ever wanted to talk about around the house. One day, I happened to overhear my mother on the phone with her sister when she exclaimed, “Oh, Killer Kowalski? He’ll be so excited!”. It turned out that my Aunt had seen a piece in the local paper about the show and figured it would be a worthwhile excursion for my cousins and our friends. Mind you, at the time, I had absolutely no clue who or what a Killer Kowalski was (which stunned my mother, who grew up Polish in 1950’s Boston) but, hey, it was wrestling…
The cards themselves were generally composed of trainees from his school and headlined by recently released WWF talent – Warlord, (I’m pretty sure I actually remember) Koko, one of the Doinks (want to say it was Matt Bourne but it was probably Ray Apollo). This one always stood out in my memory because of Big John Studd’s involvement. It was shortly before his passing (less than a year) and I vividly remember standing outside after the show hoping to get his autograph. Eventually, he pulled out of the parking lot in his little rental car, stopped, put down the window and signed an autograph or two for the kids gathered around. Somewhere in my parents’ basement, there’s a photo of him sitting behind the wheel just sort of staring at us impassively. My mom also paid a few bucks for a picture of Killer standing next to me with his hand on top of my head. I think she really liked that one.
Thanks for leading me back to this.
Oh, the one sour note? Cat, Bloom County is/was fucking great. You should be ashamed of yourself.
– Zeppo
P.S. The American Wrestling Federation Arena:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.9604451,-85.1670103,3a,75y,53.93h,90.24t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGjmLuMRqe4M4cvaV2kKkbg!2e0!7i3328!8i1664
Another great episode as usual. I like the deep dive on GI JOE. GI JOE was by far the best toys around. As I am slowly getting rid of my old comics, the old Marvel GI JOE books are one of the few things I am keeping.
On the disappointing side, I cannot believe to hear you ripping on Bloom County. I do not know if it was just where I grew up (Akron, OH), but when I was in middle school everyone was reading Bloom County. Everyone had the collections of the old strips you could get at Walden books. I distinctly remember getting of the bus from school, grabbing the paper, and going straight to latest Bloom county strip. Opus, Steve Dallas, and Bill the Cat 4 Life!
See, this guy gets it. I grew up on handed down copies of those collections. The rest of the comics page may have been pure garbage but Bloom County was stellar. Hell, it won a Pulitzer…must’ve been doing something right.
Yeah, I must agree that in high school Bloom County was awesome. Lots of kids used to buy the paperback editions of the strips back then. It was very much a product of the 1980s though. I am wondering how well it would go over today.
“Sometimes, we’re right…sometimes, we’re wrong”
Well, there’s nothing wrong with being wrong every now and then…so, I thought I’d offer a correction on something. Dre indicated that Jay Strongbow was billed incorrectly as Jules Strongbow on the undercard of the Slaughter-Russian Assassin match. Jules Strongbow was Jay’s “brother” and occasional tag team partner. I think they held the WWF tag titles at one point (pre-Hogan era). And I actually saw Jules wrestle Jake Roberts on a World Class card in the mid 1980s. Recently, I went to a Jake the Snake autograph signing and mentioned that to him. He rolled his eyes and led out a heavy sigh. “I’m assuming he wasn’t good to work with,” I said. Jake looked up, let out another sigh and grunted “No.” Made for a memorable signing.
I used to use my GI Joe (They were called Action Force here in the UK) as my toy wrestlers, as they were much more flexible and could do better moves (until the elastic band inside snapped). Visionaries figures were also in my territory, as being at a bigger scale than the GI Joe figures, they were great ‘Big men’.