Man reading those old wrestling rags opened up a whole ‘nother world beyond watching WCW and WWF for me.
I would read about this “Scotty The Body” dude in The Wrestler. So, when he popped up in Dubya See Dubya as Scotty Flamingo I’m up here like, “I know this guy”
He was a cool character, I dug his promos. He disappeared or whatever...I watch WWF Superstars one time, and he pops up with that quick Hiroshima tease before commercial break
Back from break, some new big man “Adam Bomb”
comes out. I then get a full glimpse of this Johnny Polo guy and I’m like, no fukkin way
...and why the hell isnt he wrestling??
Years past...maybe ‘95 but most likely ‘96 I pick up one of those random, full color non-Bill Apter mags that you rarely found. They have a feature on this “Extreme Championship Wrestling” and I’m seeing pics of dudes called Sabu and some guy in fukkin Zumbas named Sandman, and I see this grungy lookin cat chilling with a couple chicks and his name is Raven. He looked intriguing, then I’m like “Hold Up!”
I order a t-shirt and the Big Ass Extreme Bash vhs from an ECW ad in PWI, before it even came on Chicago TV, before Barely Legal happened, before my boy passed me an episode of ECW TV he taped while in Indiana visiting family. I watched the video, suspicions were correct.
This MF
Took him awhile to tap into one of the GOAT pro wrestling characters, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.