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FROM WWE.COM  TRIBUTE TO BRAD ARMSTRONG

Wrestlemania III review (http://rajah.com/base/node/26983)

RIP TO A SMOOTH WORKER AND GENTLE MAN

 Our 2005 Interview with Brad Armstrong - here

BRAD ARMSTRONG DIES AT JUST 51

national scale, with most of his success coming in territories like Georgia and Continental, he was beloved in the industry and respected as one of the greatest talents.

"Brad Armstrong could work with anybody. That guy was as smooth as silk," wrote Steve Austin in his autobiography,The Stone Cold Truth. "He was like Ricky Steamboat, in a way -- another guy you went out there with and never had to say a word to. He knew the finish and how to get there. I knew how good he could be. I'd call all the spots in the ring and we'd just wrestle."

Dusty Rhodes, on the Ring of Honor DVD, Secrets of the Ring, talked about putting Armstrong in high positions when Rhodes was the booker in WCW. "Did Brad ever get any big shots? I thought Brad was tremendous, and I still do to this time. I felt very comfortable putting him in a main event," said Rhodes. "Brad Armstrong didn't want to stay mediocre. He wanted to be on the top."

"Gutted to hear about Brad Armstrong passing," wroteSteve Corino on Twitter. "Amazing wrestler & even better guy."

A graduate of Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, Robert Bradley James, born June 15, 1961, followed his father into the pro wrestling ring, having grown up around the business.

"I took Brad under my wing at 18 when he started and was 210 pounds," Bob Armstrong told the Ringside Talkradio show in March 2011. "He was a pretty tough character, so I figured he'd do all right with my guidance. Sure enough when he was 19 we won the national [tag team]championships. They had 22 teams from New Zealand, Australia, Japan, South America. They brought them all into the old Omni in Atlanta, and sure enough, we came out on top."

Four of Bob Armstrong's boys would enter pro wrestling -- Brad, Brian (Road Dogg Jesse James, BG James, etc.), Steve, and Scott, who wrestled but is now a WWE referee.

In a March 2011 interview with SLAM! Wrestling, Bob Armstrong talked about what a tight-knit family they were. "We've never really been apart. I've got three sons who live within 45 minutes of me, one within five minutes of me. Brad's the only one that stayed around the Atlanta area; he married a lady from HBO, and her headquarters are up there. But my other three sons are with me all the time. We wrestle together."

According to WWE.com, "Brad saw his physician last week for a medical issue and was found unresponsive this morning."

In an interview with Tom Zenk's website -- Zenk and Brad Armstrong were a tag team in WCW for a while -- Brad Armstrong recalled his first match, Montgomery, Alabama, where another wrestler didn't show up and, having brought his gear, Brad was asked to fill in.

"I was scared to death to wrestle Jerry Brown, of the Hollywood Blondes. This guy is gonna kill me ... in public, I thought. That was the longest walk to the car to get my gear," Brad Armstrong said. "As it turned out, Jerry was one of the best workers in the business. He led the match, and I was astounded by the way he was putting me into holds and getting me out of them to make it look like I was doing it all myself. But, I beat him in the end with a small package. I was terrified, I thought I had screwed up by defeating him. But Dad slid under the ropes and picked me up with a huge hug. It suddenly occurred to me at that moment that this was all a game. I knew I never wanted to do anything else with my life! My mom cried when I told her because she remembered the life Dad had, being gone so much and the temptations out there."

In Georgia Championship Wrestling, Brad and Bob Armstrong teamed up to win the big Thanksgiving tag team tournament at Atlanta's Omni in November 1981, and the territory would be his home base for the next few years. His successes would include tag title runs with his father, his brother, Scott, Terry Allen (later Magnum T.A.) and Tim Horner, as well as Georgia's National Heavyweight title.

Moving west to Mid-South Wrestling, he was a major part of Bill Watts' UWF, an attempt at a national promotion. Other wrestling homes would include Japan, Kansas City, and Continental.

In the UWF and Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), which was the NWA at that point, he had a fabulous tag team with Tim Horner, The Lightning Express, which battled the likes of the Midnight Express.

As JCP expanded and was eventually bought by Ted Turner and his television company, Brad Armstrong got a chance to shine in many different roles, even if you didn't always recognize him.

In WCW, he was Candyman (handing out candy to kids), Arachnaman (a Spider-Man knockoff that lawyers squashed), and even the mysterious Badstreet, an ally to the Fabulous Freebirds. And don't forget Dos Hombres (a tag team with Ricky Steamboat covered from head to toe in red gear), Fantasia, Freedom Fighter, and near the end of days in WCW, Buzzkill (an old hippie wearing tye-dye shirts).

In 2000, after a TV taping, he was accidentally hit in the parking lot by a couple of other wrestlers, and severely hurt his knee. While WCW did pay for the medical expenses, when his contract came due while he was off injured, it was not renewed.

His last national exposure came in 2006, where he worked for World Wrestling Entertainment's relaunched ECW product. Besides wrestling on TV, he acted as a trainer, producer and, on a couple of occasions, as a guest commentator.

Armstrong took to the stage at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony at the Philips Arena in Atlanta in April 2011 to induct his father, along with his brothers Scott and Brian.

He is survived by his wife Lori and daughter Jillian. 

Wed, 10/31/2012 - 8:43pm — BatmanJWO

 

"WCW going belly up wasn't a one man fiasco but a team effort within the ivory towers of the CNN Center from ignorant people who did not respect the product."

I have said this many times, but WCW's biggest problem was that they didn't have anyone "in charge" that knew the business. I am not talking Dusty Rhodes, Kevin Sullivan, etc., as booker, but I am talking someone withing Turner Broadcasting that understood the product.

I have heard that Jim Herd was placed in charge when Ted Turner bought WCW and from all accounts, he was a very nice man. However, he knew nothing about wrestling. He was a TV guy. As someone who knows nothing about TV or how it is produced, I would be the last guy that should be hired to run a TV show. However, the way the WCW was run, I would be the first choice. One of my jobs is that I am charge of the umpires for youth baseball in the spring and summer. I am more than capable of training the umpires myself but I hired several others who work for me to improve the product. While I handled the business portion of the business, they did the training. WCW never got that concept.

In addition, WCW had NO IDEA what to do with talent. NWA Worldwide which eventually evolved into WCW Worldwide started appearing on my local channels in mid to late 1989. When I had better access to NWA/WCW TV, I almost stopped watching the then WWF. The in-ring product was better. However, eventually the up and coming stars like Tom Zenk, Brian Pillman, Brad Armstrong, Shane Douglas, Bobby Eaton, and Steve Austin were stuck in the middle to the bottom of the card and going absolutely nowhere. In addition to them, wrestlers like Chris Beniot, 2 Cold Scorpio, Scotty Flamingo, and even Johnny Gunn (Tom Brandi) were brought in only to almost see their "push" vanish within minutes. Eventually, they were putting over guys like Dick Slater, Greg Valentine, Erik Watts, Vinnie Vegas, Dustin Rhodes, Tex Slazenger, Shanghi Pierce, and Dan Spivey. Problem? The recently mentioned names were either at the end of their careers or extremely green.

As WCW evolved into the WWF Senior Tour in the late 90s, the trend continued. Wrestlers near the twilight of their careers should been used to help create new stars. Instead, the young stars eventually left for the WWF/E and became stars on their own. WCW was left with a bunch of expensive contracts who were told to sit at home while "new stars" were pushed. Those new stars (where the hell is Mike Sanders anyways?) had no "reference" for being a star. Who did they beat? No one other than each other. Instead of using Sting to be "the next leader" of a faction of wrestlers like Ric Flair, they sent him home and he only appeared once or twice over the last year. Soon they became a joke and long-time fans such as myself had shut off the TV and had found better things to do.

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WWE BIGGEST HEARTTHROBS

WWE Classics relives the Can-Am Connection - here

LUTTE INTERNATIONAL MONTREAL

REWIND - EARLY TOM ZENK: AWA STARCAGE 1985

SOURCE - http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2012/08/11/awa-starcage-1985-how-many-tag-matches-can-we-fit-on-one-show/

ROBBINSDALE POWER PLANT

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PRIVATE LIFE

Kevin Nash is desperately seeking Z-Man.....

BAR STORY .....

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Currently listed on ebay.......

TOM CRUISE

Source -

WWE.com: Bring it Back!: Wrestling cruises

www.wwe.com/classics/bring-it-back-wrestling-cruises

Subject: WCW Bruise Cruise report (second-hand) Newsgroups: rec.sport.pro-wrestling Date: 1992-03-31 12:07:03 PST

 WCW’s ‘91 “Bruise Cruise” (1 ½ hr.) Hand Held footage of Luger, Sting, Badd, Pillman, S. Steiner and other top names from that time period.                  

I met a woman at the recent WCW show in Worcester, MA who went on the WCW Bruise Cruise 

at the end of November '91.  This woman was about 50 years old and was a half-mark.  I spoke to 

her for about 15 minutes and she showed me about 50 pictures from it.  She said that it cost about $1,700, 

but would have cost only about $1,300 if she had made her reservations earlier.  The whole thing lasted 8 days 

and 7 nights and left from Florida.  168 fans went, but there were also plenty of other passengers on board who 

had nothing to do with this promotion.  She is a huge WCW fan, even though she lives in MA.  The wrestlers

weren't in character - that is, the faces and heels dined and drank together and the heels were as friendly (or not)as the faces.  They were still called Sting and Diamond Dallas Page, but  they wewren't really playing the whole act up.  Here's what she told/showed me:

From what she told me and from the pictures, the wrestlers/announcers on board were Scott Steiner, Sting, Lex, Terry Taylor, Badd, Jimmy Garvin,Michael Hayes, AA, Bobby Eaton, Pillman, Dallas Page, Diamond Studd, P.N.News, Larry Z, Magnum TA, Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, Dustin Rhodes, and Tom Zenk.  There may have been others as well.  Half were there for the first four days of the cruise and then they docked and those guys left and another ten or so got on.

When they docked to let the wrestlers on and off, the wrestlers put on a wrestling card at some football field.

Originally, El Gigante and Rick Steiner were also supposed to be there.  El Gigante's mother was very ill, so he was home visiting her.  Rick Steiner's wife had just given birth and the infant was very sick, so Rick was home with her.  I don't know if these reasons were legit or just what the fans were told so they wouldn't complain about Gigante's and Steiner's absences.

There were special dinners, cocktail parties, and autograph sessions with all of the wrestlers specifically for the people who bought the Bruise Cruise package.  But the wrestlers were all over the boat, too, signing autographs and mingling with all of the non-fan passengers too.

Lex Luger was out of wrestling then for about a month because he was having an operation on his jaw due to some impacted wisdom teeth problems, which I think she said was from much earlier in his life.  He was only on the ship one day because of this.

Terry Taylor, who the woman originally hated, was the nicest guy of the bunch.  He does hysterical Hulk Hogan and Macho Man impressions.  This woman now corresponds with Taylor and his wife.  In fact, she met up with them for dinner when they came to Worcester. (Actually, all the WCW wrestlers stayed at the Revere HoJos, just outside of Boston, as did the WWF wrestlers on the very same night).

Luger and Taylor won't let their kids watch wrestling because they're the bad guys. Also because of the violence.Luger has been married 13 years and has 2 kids.

Michael Hayes got drunk and sang "Jailhouse Rock" with the house band.

Magnum TA's wife is absolutely gorgeous!  

Larry Zybszko wasn't particulary friendly.  He wasn't nasty, but he just wasn't as outgoing as most of the others were.  AA, on the other hand, was great.  He stayed up until 3:30 one morning with a bunch of fans, buying them all drinks.

The woman I met got her picture in the WCW magazine and also in the Sunday Boston Herald wrestling column, which showed her kissing Lex.  

Dusty Rhodes wasn't there, to quote the woman, "thank God.  I really didn't want to see him in a bathing suit."

Damond Dallas Page was "a doll".  He is really funny and talks a lot like he does in his interviews.  The DiamondStudd and Johnny B. Badd were great, too.

This woman had made mittens for El Gigante (which looked to be the size of pillowcases) and afghans and mittens for Lex and Sting.  Lex seemed to like them a lot.  Sting was a lot more standoffish and accepted the presents, but didn't really beam over them, like Luger did.  In the 4 pictures I saw of Sting, two of which were posed, he wasn't smiling.  

The woman had previously made an afghan for Lex and had taken a picture of it covering a Lex wrestling buddy on her couch at home.  She then sent that afghan and picture to his gym about 2 months before the cruise.  On the cruise, she showed Lex the picture of the afghan, doll, and couch and he immediatley recognized it and her thanked her a lot.  He said that one of his kids now uses the afghan.  The woman then gave him another one and he seemed genuinely touched and said that his other kid would use it.  

Before the trip, she hated Terry Taylor and loved Lex.  After the trip,Taylor had become her #1 boy, and she wasstill in love with Lex.  She couldn't stop raving about how bright and friendly Taylor was (and how much he really loves being in wrestling).  She and Terry (and Terry's wife) have exchanged a couple of notes since the trip ended.  

All in all, it sounded like a really good time.  This woman loved it and intends to go on the next one.

Mike