Greg Gagne Names Only Person Who Left AWA For WWE ‘The Right Way’

After being left reeling from how Hulk Hogan abruptly departed the American Wrestling Association (AWA) in 1983 to join WWE, which ultimately led to more surprise exits from the promotion, Greg Gagne, the son of late legendary wrestler and promoter Verne Gagne, has named the only person in the business who left the AWA “the right way” to join Vince McMahon’s company. 

“Bobby Heenan,” Gagne told “Busted Open Radio.” “Bobby Heenan came in, and he told Verne, he said, ‘Verne, here’s the deal. I’ll fulfill all my dates with you, but I’ve got a great opportunity with New York.’ And Verne shook hands with him and said, ‘Bobby, I appreciate you coming to us and doing it like that.’ He fulfilled his commitments, and he was the only one who did that, besides me.”

After starting out with the World Wrestling Association, the late Bobby Heenan debuted for the AWA in 1969 and immediately adopted the nickname “The Brain.” Heenan would eventually manage the team of Nick Bockwinkel and Ray Stevens to AWA World Tag Team Championship success. Heenan would later put together his Heenan Family stable that consisted of Stevens, Bockwinkel, Bobby Duncum Sr., and Blackjack Lanza, which saw Bockwinkel go on to capture the AWA World Heavyweight Championship. It was in 1984 that Heenan walked away from the AWA to join WWE. Heenan’s first role with McMahon’s company saw him manage Big John Studd in his feud with André the Giant, which ultimately led to a Career vs. $15,000 Body Slam Challenge Match between the pair at the first-ever WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden. 

Former WWE Tag Team Champion Brian Knobbs Hospitalised

It’s been revealed that tag team specialist Brian Knobbs is currently in hospital with what has been labelled “major stomach issues”.

Knobbs’ friend Fred Jung yesterday launched a GoFundMe campaign for the 57-year-old Nasty Boy, noting that Brian’s health has taken a turn and he was rushed to the emergency room on Tuesday. After tests related to stomach problems, extremely concerned doctors informed Knobbs that he is likely to be hospitalised for at least the new few months.

In addition to his stomach issues, Brian Knobbs’ “good knee” requires surgery if he is able to properly walk again.

Having made his in-ring debut in 1985, Knobbs began teaming with Jerry Sags just a year later as the Nasty Boys. During the next ten years, the Nasties won tag team gold in Florida Championship Wrestling, the then-WWF and WCW. Once Sags was forced to retire in 1996, Knobbs went on to have some singles success as part of WCW’s hardcore division.

At the time of this writing, Knobbs’ GoFundMe campaign has raised $8,755 of its $20,000 goal. You can find full details on said campaign here.

“The Patriot” Del Wilkes Passes Away

The legendary Wilkes passed away earlier today from a massive heart attack, according to The Charleston Post & Courier. He was just 59 years old.

Wilkes, who leaves behind a wife of 40+ years named Cathy, began wrestling in 1988, and had runs with WWE, WCW, AWA, promotions in Japan, and more. He is a former two-time WCW World Tag Team Champion, and a former AWA World Tag Team Champion. Wilkes last wrestled for WWE in October 1997, losing to WWE Hall of Famer Jim Neidhart on Shotgun Saturday Night. He was released in early 1998.

Wilkes retired from pro wrestling after leaving WWE due to a triceps injury. He had worked for the past 16 years as a car salesman in Columbia, South Carolina. He also hosted the “Unmasking the Truth” podcast on the WWAB Podcast Network. Florida-based pastor Andy McDaniel, who hosted the podcast with Wilkes, issued a statement to The Post & Courier.

“Del Wilkes would become a name that those in college football knew quite well. He would make his name familiar in the world of pro wrestling as well. However, regardless of the accolades or fame he may have achieved, to me, he was best known as a friend. Del overcame his struggles in this life and became an inspiration to many. Our loss is Heaven’s gain,” McDaniel said.

Tully Blanchard On Arn Anderson Being Penalized For His WWE Suspension, Legacy Of The Four Horsemen

Tully Blanchard is best known for being part of the original version of the Four Horsemen in NWA. There have been many attempts by various promotions to recreate the magic of the Horsemen with subsequent stables, but none of them have matched the legacy the Horsemen left behind.

Blanchard talked to Andy Malnoske where he was asked if there will ever be another wrestling stable like the Four Horsemen.

“No. They don’t know how to make [a stable] without making it sound dumb or anything,” said Blanchard. “If it could have been duplicated, it would have been resurrected as bad as WCW tried to make it happen without me. They almost did, but if you have the recipe for something that works, you can’t change the ingredients.”

Blanchard said WCW tried different iterations of the Horsemen with every star imaginable, but it never worked.

The Horsemen weren’t so much a gimmick, as the wrestlers within the group lived their everyday lives the same way as they talked about in promos.

“What you saw on TV was what you saw at the nightclub or breakfast the next day. You saw a group of guys get off an airplane, go to the gym, take care of business and go out with the pretty girls,” stated Blanchard.

Blanchard then told a story about being at an airport hotel bar in Jacksonville, Florida and some drunk cowboy stumbled in. The Road Warriors were also at that bar and the drunk decided to pick a fight with them instead of Blanchard who was much smaller.

“It was entertaining. It was some drunk and he goes and picks on the 330 pound guy that could squash you. It never failed – that kind of stuff,” said Blanchard.

In 1988 Blanchard and Arn Anderson left NWA and went to WWE where they became the Brain Busters. Many think this is when Blanchard’s career started to decline, but he only looks at the positives of the move.

“I don’t look at stuff like that,” admitted Blanchard. “If we had never went to the WWF, we would have never been on the main event in Madison Square Garden. It was very rewarding to be on those things.”

The plan was for he and Anderson to return to WCW, and Arn did, but Blanchard never returned as a full-time competitor due to getting suspended from WWE for a failed drug test.

“[Ric] Flair calls me and says WCW found out about the drug test and reneged on the deal. So WCW didn’t hire me back trying to save money and probably the biggest regret I had in my life,” revealed Blanchard. “I didn’t mind paying the consequences for my own actions, but Arn got penalized because of my actions and it cost him and his family money. That says a lot about WCW as a company and it should never have happened.”

Had Blanchard made his way back to WCW, he says that reforming the Four Horsemen would have been a huge deal.

“It would have been humongous because you had the same chemistry, but they saw fit to not hire me back,” stated Blanchard. “When Flair called me that night at 1:00 in the morning, I hung up and I panicked and wondered, ‘What the stink am I gonna do?’ I can’t work in either place now… and at 35 years old I’d never been unemployed.”

It was then where Blanchard became a born-again Christian, turned his life around and eventually ended up in the American Wrestling Association in Minnesota.

Arn Anderson was recently released from his producer role with WWE and Blanchard says he tried reaching out to his former tag partner.

“I tried to talk to Arn a couple of days ago when I was in Charlotte… and he was at a Comic Con signing autographs. He couldn’t really hear me so we have not talked about it. So I don’t know anything more than he’s not there anymore,” said Blanchard.

Hulk Hogan Returns To WWE Raw To Celebrate Gene Okerlund’s Life

Following the sad news of ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund’s death this past week, WWE have announced that the legendary announcer’s close friend and regular guest on the mic Hulk Hogan will return to Monday Night Raw this week to honour the passing of his friend.

Hogan took to Twitter on Tuesday night to eulogise Okerlund, describing his long-term pal as “the best partner I ever had”. The pair were in regular cahoots on WWE programming during the ’80s, having both arrived from Verne Gagne’s AWA together. The culmination of their friendship came when Okerlund stepped into the ring himself as Hogan’s partner opposite George ‘The Animal’ Steele and his manager Mr. Fuji in 1984.

When Hogan jumped to WCW in 1994, he rekindled his on-screen partnership with the veteran interviewer. It somehow felt right.

Hogan’s Raw tribute will mark the first time he has made a WWE appearance since his personal indiscretions were hastily forgiven for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Jewel event back in November. Although it’s difficult to argue that the Hulkster’s appearance is entirely appropriate for the occasion, cynics will again note that WWE have leveraged the situation to usher Hogan back onto screens during circumstances which won’t draw complaint.

WWE Hall Of Famer Gene Okerlund Has Died

Legendary  wrestling interviewer ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund has passed away at the age of 76.

WWE posted the news of Okerlund’s death on their official website earlier today. No cause of death has been given as yet.

In a career spanning over five decades, Okerlund established himself in the wrestling industry as one of its finest ever interviewers and presenters. At the time of his death, the tenured legend was signed to a lifetime contract with WWE, recognised as one of the company’s most cherished personalities, and a reassuringly familiar figure across several generations of their product.

Born Eugene Arthur Okerlund on 19 December 1942 in Sisseton, South Dakota, the budding broadcast journalist swapped a career in radio for an interviewer’s gig in Verne Gagne’s AWA. When Vince McMahon began hoovering up the territories in the mid-’80s, he caught Okerlund in his dragnet. The announcer would turn out to be one of McMahon’s most valuable captures.

Okerlund’s assurance and professional composure in front of the camera provided the perfect counterpoint for the then-WWF’s hyper-exaggerated superstars, and he quickly became a staple across all the brand’s output. Completely comfortable in any role, Okerlund was omnipresent at every WWF show, including Prime Time Wrestling, Tuesday Night Titans, and every major PPV. Ever dependable, he even sung the national anthem at the first WrestleMania.

Nine years into his WWF stint, Okerlund was swept up by WCW in 1993 after his current employers failed to offer him a new contract. When he was joined by regular on-screen pal Hulk Hogan the following year, the pair provided fresh mainstream legitimacy to a company with realistic aspirations of expansion.

Okerlund’s excellence continued throughout his spell in Atlanta, but his return to WWE at WrestleMania X-Seven’s ‘Gimmick Battle Royal’ following the company’s purchase of WCW felt like a homecoming. He was retained ever since, hosting countless WWE programmes, and most recently appearing at Raw 25 to interview then-WWE champion AJ Styles.

In 2006, he was rightly inducted into WWE’s Hall of Fame by Hulk Hogan.

Scott Hall Remembers ‘Mr. Perfect’ Curt Hennig, Helping Hennig With His Physique, Hennig’s Influence

Source: Pandemonium Radio

WWE Hall of Famer Scott Hall joined Nani on Pandemonium to pay tribute to the late “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig. The tribute show is scheduled to be released in its entirety on March 28th at Pandemonium Radio. They sent us these highlights from an early snippet released last week:

The AWA and Hennig’s influence on him:

“I learned so much from Curt. I started in Charlotte and then I went to Kansas City and then I moved on to Minneapolis in the AWA. I was getting my first push. The show was on ESPN and I was getting my first TV exposure and, at that time, the business was changing. They started to push guys based on the way they looked. They liked my look. Curt was a really good performer so they put us together so he could kind of carry me and that’s exactly what he did. This was before guaranteed money and before guaranteed contracts so we were competing for the same job. But, you know, he wasn’t a mark about it. He did what was best for the show and what was best for business and, along the way, smartened me up like crazy.

“We used to study tapes when we were AWA champs. He was married with a family and I’m a single guy in Minneapolis. But, when the show came on, we would talk on the phone and watch our matches. We would talk about it as we saw it back. He would critique it for me then. It was just great. He was my first experience, well not my first experience because I had been around Barry Windham and Dusty Rhodes in Florida. I’d think, ‘Finally, I’m a pro-wrestler, I’m going to towns, I’m a big deal.’ And Curt introduced me to that lifestyle and how to do it right and how to have fun. It’s a whole different game and it impacts your whole life. It’s tough but Curt taught me to have fun. He said, ‘Always make fun. Always have fun, even if you have to create your own.’ That’s one of the most important things I learned from him.”

His impact on Curt Hennig:

“If you look at me and Curt when we first hooked up in Minneapolis and then you see the guy Mr. Perfect, you’ll see my impact on Curt. It wasn’t just a one-way street. He taught me about business and we’d get in the car after a match and we’d talk about nothing but wrestling. And then, we were traveling together so, when we stopped to eat, I’m helping him with the nutritional stuff. I’m a big-time muscle head back then so I wanted to go to the gym every day. So, I get Curt in the gym and eating right. If you look at Mr. Perfect, he has a much better physique than he did in AWA and I’ll take credit for that [laughs].”

Reuniting with Hennig in the WWF:

“When I crossed paths with him again in the then-WWF, he was in a great spot. He already had a built reputation for being a great performer. Now, in WWF, Curt had been injured and he’s collecting his Lloyd’s of London policy. But he’s so talented that they’re keeping him around and Vince McMahon is grooming him to be a broadcaster on Superstars. At the time, that’s the lead show, the main show and this was before Raw. It was a lot harder and a lot more work. Curt was in a great spot because he already proved he’s a great in-ring performer and now he’s kind of like an ‘office guy’, but he’s not. He was with [Bobby] Heenan and [Ric] Flair. So when Razor came in the door, I already knew Curt. It’s like they strapped a rocket to myback as far as being pushed, in a fan’s eye. And it was great to cross paths with Curt because we had a strong bond in AWA.”

Hennig’s practical jokes:

“Curt was the world-class ribber. When we first crossed paths in Minneapolis during the weekdays, we’d wrestle at little high schools. So we’d change in the locker rooms and Curt would walk around and pull on all the combination locks until he found one that wasn’t locked all the way. He’d have about three or four locks in his bag and he would take two guys’ wrestling bags and suitcases and lock the handles together and call them ‘buddy bags.’ He did this, particularly to two guys who don’t like each other so they’re forced for the rest of the loop to walk through the airport together with ‘buddy bags.’ He would put it on the hood ornament of your car and call it the ‘Teakettle Effect.’ While you’re driving down the road, it’d rock back and forth against your paintjob. He’d take a padlock and put it through the button-hole of your brand new designer shirt or on the little loop of your cowboy boots where you pull them up, you know. He’d put it through the belt loop of your new designer jeans so you’d have to cut the loop. He was funny like that. He would always look for the opportunity to have a laugh.”

Hennig’s wrestling style as a heel:

“What I liked about Curt was he was a wrestler first and then he could always heat it up. He was a wrestling heel. Nick Bockwinkel was another influential guy in the AWA at that time and Nick was a great performer. He was a wrestling heel and a lot of people aren’t going to understand what I mean. But, basically, you wrestle with the guy, the babyface comes out on top, and then you cheat. Nick would pull the tights or use the ropes or something to gain an advantage and then get back to wrestling. I think that’s a lost art. Curt was great with that. Back in the squash-match era, Curt would do a running dropkick and he always gave the job-guy a spot. He would always have the guy reverse the hip-toss, shoot him in to the ropes, and then go for a backdrop but then Curt would leapfrog the guy and hit him with the running dropkick. So, anybody listening, I dare you to go and research that and you’ll see Curt does that with almost every job match. He’s going to squash the guy later and hit him with the Perfectplex but he always takes a hip-toss first.”

How he passes Hennig’s wisdom onto younger talent:

“When I see young guys now, I remind them to enjoy this because your life is going by. You know, you’re spending life on the road away from your family so go ahead and have fun, too. Because, when you look around that locker-room, some guys aren’t having fun. So why do it? It’s a big sacrifice to make. Basically, you’re on the road entertaining other people’s kids. Might as well have a little bit of fun, at least.”

WWE to name Larry “The Living Legend” Zbyszko into Hall of Fame

A night after lowering their Hall of Fame standards with the announcement that Rikishi will be joining the hallowed halls of WWE glory, Vinny Mac and company are scheduled to redeem themselves by adding Larry “The Living Legend” Zbyszko into the Class of 2015, when it is inducted the on March 28, the night before WrestleMania 31.

Zbyszko had a colorful 40-year career as a professional wrestler, yet he will forever be known in the minds of longtime grappling fans for one of the biggest heel turns in history when he swerved on protege Bruno Sammartino on January 22, 1980.

Tired of being in the shadow of the then-WWF champion, Zbyszko goaded Sammartino into a match where he….

….well, let’s allow the video tell the rest….

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfFB0S-3bq4]

As unexpected as Hulk Hogan’s heel turn at the 1996 Bash at the Beach (which signaled the birth of the nWo), Zbyszko’s swerve rocked the wrestling world, so much so that his car was damaged by fans, while a taxi he was riding in was nearly turned over by irate viewers.

The turn worked wonders for WWF’s bottom line, as Zbyszko and Sammartino embarked on an eight-month feud that ended when the teacher defeated the student in a steel cage match in front of over 36,000 people at Shea Stadium.

The feud with Sammartino solidified Zbyszko as a headliner, which he carried over into the National Wrestling Alliance and the American Wrestling Association for much of the decade. Zbyszko had feuds with future WWE Hall of Famers Nick Bockwinkel, Sgt. Slaughter and Paul Orndorff in that span, furthering his status as “The Living Legend.”

Younger fans probably remember Zbyszko best for his role as a commentator for World Championship Wrestling in the peak of the Monday Night Wars in the mid-1990s. While he wrestled for the company earlier in the decade, Zbyszko gained a new generation of fans for his insight and (still) arrogant personality. He spent four years at Total Nonstop Wrestling before closing out his career in the independent circuit.

Zbyszko signed a legend’s contract with WWE early in 2013 and has served as an ambassador for the company.

So there’s your history lesson on a man who truly deserved the honor of becoming a WWE Hall of Famer, a man whose impact was far, far more important than a man whose defining moments came putting his big butt in the face of his opponents.

Possible 2015 WWE Hall Of Fame Inductee

With WWE usually inducting a local legend from the WrestleMania host area, one possible name to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame during WrestleMania 31 weekend in 2015 is NWA Hall of Famer and former WWWF United States Champion Ray “The Crippler” Stevens.

Stevens would be considered a top choice for the Bay Area as the biggest star ever with only Hulk Hogan coming close as a long-term draw. Another choice would be former wrestler and pro football player Leo Nomellini but WWE owns no footage of him and he has no tie to them but WWE has plenty of Stevens footage.