#229 – The Rise and Fall of the American Males
This week on the OSWP, Dre and the Black Cat look at the greatest WCW tag team of all time – The American Males. We are also joined in the 2nd half by Harley Race who will be giving out tips for week four of your NFL Pick ’em league. Please support the OSWP by visiting our Patreon page at Patreon.com/oswp. We’ll see you…at the matches.
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Where do the American Males rank on your Mount Rushmore of tag team wrestling?
What’s up Dre and Black Cat! While listening to episode 229, I realized I’d never seen the opening to Souled Out 1997, despite the fact I lived in Cedar Rapids for almost five years — moved in that August and stayed until May 2002. The very first shot shows the sign for the Taco Bell just a few blocks east of the Five Seasons Center where a bunch of us ate the day we waited in line to buy tickets for a 1998 WCW Thunder show. (That show was the day I met Booker T, then the TV champion, at the Ultimate Electronics on the far east side of town, you can read about the Thunder here https://pdrwrestling.net/2016/04/11/wcw-thunder-02-26-98/ or here https://uproxx.com/prowrestling/wcw-thunder-best-and-worst-of-february-26-1998/).
Anyway, as DWKII and I confirmed on Twitter, the fifth season in Cedar Rapids is “time to enjoy the other four.” There’s a ridiculous sculpture and everything. Knowing the geography as I do (DWKII and I went to college literally a half mile away from the arena), I can tell you that opening montage required a ton of editing because you could walk the short route they used in as much time as it took the trucks to roll into the arena service entrance.
I had to laugh when Scott Hall grabbed his nose upon entering the arena — right after the entire nWo passed the scoreboard they use when The Five hosts the state high school girls volleyball championships — because although he was doing his usual schtick about how they smell because they’re the stuff, Cedar Rapids, especially that part of downtown, is known for its many odors and informally called the City of Five Smells. The stench comes from a variety of chemical plants and animal feed operations, as well as factories that crank out tons of breakfast cereal (including Crunchberries!)
CR hasn’t had a ton of wrestling history, although it is where Ricky Steamboat suffered his career-ending injury in a match with Steve Austin at Clash of the Champions in August 1994. When I was in college I made friends with an older woman (I’d guess late 50s/early 60s at the time at the very least) who regaled me with stories of hanging out with the WWF stars like Andre the Giant when they came through for house shows in the 1980s. After I left she got elected to the city council of her adjacent hometown. But mostly Iowa is an amateur wrestling state, although the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo does have a professional wing — the class of 2018 included Bruiser Brody, Owen Hart, Booker T and Dan Severn.
That’s probably more than you ever need to know about Cedar Rapids (until the 2008 flood, the city government buildings were on a downtown island, just like Paris, France), but I always appreciate when OSWP episodes touch on something from my personal life, like your stories about hitting up the RF Video store at Gurnee Mills. Thanks for the episode, and I’ll see you at the matches.