Favorite 'Wrasslin' "Heels" ?

[Old Scratch]

All time greatest heel turn when Hulk went Hollywood, brother

[video=youtube;cO9zxsRzN-M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO9zxsRzN-M[/video]

 

[werewolf]

You ever hear of Antonio Inoki? He's a Japanese professional wrestler who had an "MMA" match against Ali. A few days before the fight Ali's camp informed Inoki of a several rule changes that Inoki had to abide by otherwise Ali would pull out of the fight. One of the rules put in place was that Inoki could only kick Ali if Inoki had one knee on the mat.

Long story short, Inoki spent the entire fight on one knee taking shots and Ali's legs. The "fight" ended in a draw but Ali's legs were never the same again. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Ali hadn't chickened out, imagine one of the biggest caste tools in history getting beaten by a "fake" wrestler.

I heard this from some insiders in the wrasslin business. I forgot all the details, but they said what actually happened was that the Black Muslims made a deal with the Japanese Yakuza and right before the fight they changed the rules and they told Inoki he couldn't do practically any wrestling moves at all. Inoki got around it by staying on the ground for most of the fight and kicking at Clay's legs - they didn't tell him he couldn't do that - and as a result Clay got bursitis in his legs which bothered him for the rest of his life and he was never as fast on his feet again. They said that Inoki was so good that had the fight been legit Inoki would have won in a few seconds. Many of Clay's fights were won by Black Muslim intimidation and other crookedness.

The same night that Clay fought Inoki there was another fight that was also billed as a legit wrestler-boxer matchup, a "shoot" in the carny-wrasslin parlance. Though it was in a different city they showed the respective fights on screen live. That one was Andre The Giant vs. Chuck Wepner, and that one was for real, except Andre - who was not a nice person in real life - fought as dirty as he could, even though he was twice Wepner's size - and Wepner - who I used to know a bit, was lucky he wasn't seriously injured, because the monstrous son of a bitch skull butted him with his gigantic skull as hard as he could, and then picked him up and tossed him out of the ring -like for real.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Inoki & Andre would've killed Clay in a legitimate "shoot" fight....no doubt. Just like Brock Lesnar would obliterate modern caste 'gods' (from ANY sport) in a street fight (mano e mano).

Speaking of Lesnar, I think he's the best, contemporary "monster heel". He's (naturally) surly & arrogant, but has the freakish athletic ability & brute power to back it up. I was glad to see him "end" the Undertaker's 'undefeated' streak at Wrestlemania.

 

[werewolf]

very interesting legit "shoot" interview with the late captain lou albano



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dclm7aqjmos

amongst a million other things he mentions the time that cassius clay was mocking a bunch of wrestlers, so gorilla monsoon got in the ring with him, and clay was begging for mercy. he said that monsoon could easily have seriously injured or killed clay if he wanted to.

 

[werewolf]

What happened to Clay vs. Monsoon would have happened vs. Inoki too had the fight been a legit shoot as it was billed. Unfortunately the Monsoon-Clay scrap wasn't filmed and only wrestlers were present, and Vince McMahon Jr (who the Captain didn't like - he liked Sr.) wanted it kept quiet and was scared that Clay had gotten injured.

There are some funny skits between the Captain and Cyndi Lauper available on Youtube from the 1980's. here's their famous "girls just want to have fun" vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIb6AZdTr-A

Lots of interesting stories about wrasslin from the Captain. It was a very dangerous business being a heel, the danger coming from the audience. Once he was doing some anti-Italian schtick, even though he himself was Italian and born in Italy, and the crowd chased him outside and broke the windows in the bar where he was hiding and the taxi cab that he jumped into. Lots of heels have fared much worse at the hands of the idiotic wrestling fans.

I read a book by Classie Freddie Blassie, and he was laying his heel act on thick, like he always did, in Washington DC before a mostly black crowd who were becoming very agitated, and the ref was the famous ex-boxer Two Ton Tony Galento, and they were both scared, and during the fight they whispered plans to each other about how they were going to get out of there alive.

Interesting stuff, the wrestling racket, part sport, part carny, part show biz, and part very dirty stuff with crooks and drugs. Some real intelligent and interesting guys in it too, like Killer Kowalski, Mick Foley, and the Captain was a very interesting guy too.

You can't tell by looking at them...

George The Animal Steele (t/n William Myers) was a teacher with a masters degree in science before he became a wrestler.

 

[werewolf]

Speaking on Antonio Inoki, there's a video on Youtube of him wrasslin The Great Antonio. The latter Antonio was actually a strong man who performed strength feats, and he was morbidly obese. He was a Croatian who moved to Canada and was never tightly wrapped in the head, and eventually he wound up homeless wandering the streets with shopping bags. Anyway, he wasn't playing along with the script like you need to do on a wrasslin show, and halfway through Inoki lost his temper and beat up on him for real.

Inoki is very famous in Japan. He took the name Antonio from the famous Argentine-American wrestler Antonino Rocca. He recently converted to islam and changed his name to Muhammad Hussain, which is odd.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Here's some vintage promos from another one of my favorite "heels"...the late "Captain Redneck" Dick Murdoch (Wrestling at the Chase in St.Louis).

http://youtu.be/Q1GJAQRLuhY

http://youtu.be/kWqu_JyE72k

http://youtu.be/5Y_gDUkAVl4

 

[celticdb15]

Dixie as a youngin' almost of the guys I watched in the 90s/early 2000s were roided up. 2 of my favorites though were RVD and The Undertaker loved that bad ass Harley he rode in on.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Dixie as a youngin' almost of the guys I watched in the 90s/early 2000s were roided up. 2 of my favorites though were RVD and The Undertaker loved that bad ass Harley he rode in on.

CDB, yessir. RVD was a phenomenal athlete (although an alleged dope head).

Mark Calloway (aka Undertaker) was always very agile for a big man & solid on the mic. My favorite heel incarnation of UT was the bad@$$ biker. Here's a pretty good clip of him in "monster heel" form....teaching a "lesson" to Tommy Dreamer. ;-)

http://youtu.be/HlAZWF0oJok

 

[davidholly]

CDB, yessir. RVD was a phenomenal athlete (although an alleged dope head).

Mark Calloway (aka Undertaker) was always very agile for a big man & solid on the mic. My favorite heel incarnation of UT was the bad@$$ biker. Here's a pretty good clip of him in "monster heel" form....teaching a "lesson" to Tommy Dreamer. ;-)

http://youtu.be/HlAZWF0oJok

That video only reminds me of how sexy the Undisputed title was, then they go with that hideous spinner. :der:

 

[Georgia Peach]

Mr Perfect was the greatest.

[video=youtube;_ixzEcIY8SI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ixzEcIY8SI[/video]

 

[GiovaniMarcon]

I like Bobby the Brain Heenan. When you're a little kid you hate him, but as you get older and look back you realize it takes a lot of talent to get people so worked up against you. Plus he was funny.