You have probably seen Mil Mascaras before. If not wrestling, then at least on the cover of a magazine or in the WWE Hall of Fame. You have probably read stories about him in your favorite wrestling books, but who is Mil Mascaras really?
On today’s episode, Karl Stern takes a look at the career of one of the trinity of wrestling luchadores.
When you mention the greatest luchadores of all time you have to say El Santo, Blue Demon, and today’s topic, Mil Mascaras.
Mil Mascaras has wrestled all over the world. Unlike El Santo who stayed mainly in Mexico, Mil Mascaras wrestled frequently in the United States, including Madison Square Garden, and in Japan.
When you mention great wrestling families you also have to mention Mil Mascaras. He has two brothers who were also stars and his nephew became a world champion in WWE.
The Man of 1000 Masks is the topic of today’s July Classic Wrestling Marathon show.
Today on the July Classic Wrestling Marathon, host Karl Stern heads south of the border to Mexico to look at one of his favorite lucha stars, Canek.
Canek seems to be one of those stars of lucha libre who many in the United States have heard of but know very little about.
While many fans in the US can name off legendary luchadores like Mil Mascaras, El Santo, and Rey Misterio, Canek remains somewhat unknown, yet he was one of the biggest stars of his era in Mexico.
Canek was the top star of the old UWA promotion and faced many legendary stars over the years including Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Lou Thesz, Big Van Vader, and battled for years with Mil Mascaras.
Somehow, he convinced many of the biggest stars in the world to put him over for the UWA World championship starting with Lou Thesz. He fought Hulk Hogan in Mexico for the WWF title and even got to stand tall over Andre the Giant.
Canek was also a star in Japan and still wrestles to this day. On today’s show, we finally give Canek his due.
Many people mistakenly believe that the “Tennessee Stud” was Robert Fuller (AKA: Col. Rob Parker) since Robert and his cousin Jimmy Golden were active during the cable TV era and the end of the territories.
Together Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden were known as The Stud’s Stable but the original Stud’s Stable had actually existed long before. The first version of the stable was managed by Ron Fuller and included people like Arn Anderson, Lord Humongous, and others.
The original Tennessee Stud was the 6’9″ older brother Ron Fuller.
Fuller was a businessman who bought out territories and ran a huge geographic area from the Ohio River to the Gulf Coast. He owned the Nashville hockey team and made it successful in a region of the country where hockey had no foothold.
He wrestled multiple NWA world champions for the title and was a member of the NWA Board of Directors.
So why have so few people heard about Ron Fuller? In today’s show we will look at the man who could look Andre the Giant in the eyes, the Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller.
Time is running out to order a Super Stern Stick 16gb Flashdrive. The flashdrive is full of pro wrestling history audio series, audio files, pdf and text files, newsletters, and much more. Over 500 podcasts dealing with pro wrestling history and over 500 readable files. You can order it at this link.
The timing could not have worked out better for this show as, just the day before, Jushin Liger was announced as participating in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament.
The tournament this year looks to be one of the most loaded in history with some incredible matches possible.
Karl Stern was a huge fan of Jushin Liger from the start. With his futuristic sci-fi themed outfit to his spectacular and revolutionary highflying, Liger captured the audience’s imagination from day one.
The man who would become Liger, Keiichi Yamada, was a stand-out wrestler in high school. He lost the national championship to another future legend in Toshiaki Kawada.
As many of the Japanese stars over the years have done, Yamada then traveled world learning to work a variety of styles.
Yamada worked in Canada and Europe, including the legendary Stampede promotion where fingerprints of his time there learning from masters like the Harts and the British Bulldogs influenced the Jushin Liger character.
When Liger returned to Japan he debuted the futuristic, manga inspired Jushin “Thunder” Liger character. In 1987 he also debuted a revolutionary move that would be copied by many wrestlers over the coming years, the Shooting Star Press.
In 1999 he was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame.
Today’s edition of the July Classic Wrestling Marathon takes a look at Jushin Thunder Liger, one of the greatest junior heavyweights of all time,
Today’s show looks at Joe “Jody” Hamilton, best known in professional wrestling as The Assassin. He and Tom Renesto were THE prototype heel tag team that traveled the country feuding with the Kentuckians, but Karl saw none of that.
He saw Hamilton as the masked Flame — a fireball-throwing heel in a bright red and yellow outfit who talked in a scary voice, the man who tortured Bob Armstrong and Lord Humongous in Karl’s childhood and scared him to death. He once even threatened to shoot Bob Armstrong on television and had a videotape to prove that he would do it.
While Karl only saw The Assassin at the end of his career when he was past his prime and had put on a lot of weight, he learned about his legendary career with The Assassins through his book and videotapes.
Later, Karl was personally involved in the WCW racial discrimination lawsuit where he worked for the plaintiffs who were suing Turner Sports.
Karl collected and compiled statistics for Bobby Walker, Ernest Miller, and the other half-dozen or so wrestlers who took part in that lawsuit. Hamilton was a trainer at the WCW Power Plant during part of that time so Karl worked exhaustively on information related to his career at that point.
So, while Karl probably knows as much about the career of The Assassin as anyone, he will always remember him as that menacing heel throwing fireballs at the good guys – The Flame.
Today’s show is all about The Assassin’s career, but focuses more on the Flame era which isn’t as well known known to most fans. Karl also talks about The Assassin’s brother and his son, both of whom were in pro wrestling too.
On today’s edition of the July Classic Wrestling Marathon, Karl looks at the career of The Assassin.
“The Enforcer” Arn Anderson is best known for his years spent as a member of the Four Horsemen in the NWA and WCW.
He and Ole Anderson formed the second version of the Minnesota Wrecking Crew. He and Tully Blanchard formed one of the best teams of the era. He was best friends with Ric Flair. Anderson was a great promo and solid in-ring wrestler.
Starting out his career as a fan taunting the original Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Anderson eventually worked his way into the wrestling business.
Being trained and coached by “Nightmare” Ted Allen, he spent his early years wrestling in Mid-South, Southeastern, and Georgia. When he and Ole teamed up as the new Minnesota Wrecking Crew, Anderson held his own with the veterans both inside the ring on the microphone.
Still to this day, Anderson is involved with pro wrestling working as an agent for WWE.
On today’s edition of July Classic Wrestling Marathon, Karl Stern takes a look at the career of “The Enforcer” Arn Anderson.
“Mr. USA” Tony Atlas was a fixture in the wrestling magazines of Karl Stern’s youth. He was massive, and had a likability that made him an excellent babyface.
From Georgia Championship Wrestling to the WWF, Atlas was a big star during the time Karl first became a superfan. His career dropped off quickly in the mid-to-late 1980s due to a variety of factors, but the Atlas of the very early 1980s was amazing.
Karl didn’t have any direct way of seeing Atlas at the time. He seldom got to see Georgia Championship Wrestling when Atlas was hot there, but Karl became a fan of his through the Apter magazines. By the time WWF became syndicated and Karl was able to watch him, the problems had already set in.
Karl got to see Atlas live in Birmingham, Alabama, at a WWF house show during that time and the mystery of this guy who was every bit as big as Hulk Hogan had him hooked.
On today’s edition of the Classic Wrestling Marathon, Karl Stern takes a look at the career of “Mr. USA” Tony Atlas.
Tommy “Wildfire” Rich became a near instant star in the early 1980s but almost as quickly as he shot to stardom, he fell from the top going from one of the youngest NWA World Heavyweight champions to a comedy figure in just a few years time.
So, what went wrong? Actually, Rich had a better career than most give him credit for. And in this show, Karl Stern will talk about that in detail, including Rich’s involvement in one of the best angles of 1987.
Fred Ward and Harley Race believed in Rich to such a degree that he had a short run as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion while being one of the hottest ever babyfaces in Georgia. Often moving back and forth between Georgia and Memphis wrestling, it seemed like Rich was building toward becoming one of the biggest stars of the 1980s and possibly beyond.
But it burnt out as quickly as it started. Though Rich worked a variety of places including Continental, AWA, and WCW, he never came close to recapturing that magic he had early on in Georgia.
But for a short time in 1987, he did. Along with Paul Heyman (Paul E. Dangerously at the time) and Austin Idol, he was part of one of the last great angles of the territorial era where the heels finally outsmarted Jerry “The King” Lawler. In the weeks leading to a big hair vs. hair match, Rich laid down a great series of promos and matches which helped build to the big surprise – when he came out from under the ring in a steel cage match and cost Lawler his hair for the first and only time in his career.
On the latest episode of our classic wrestling July marathon, join us in taking a look at “Wildfire” Tommy Rich.
“Bullet” Bob Armstrong was the perfect babyface character for his era.
Back in a time when people still believed in babyfaces and hated heels, “Bullet” Bob was a firefighter and former Marine from Marietta, Georgia. He spoke like others spoke, and he acted like you would expect him to act. He had a code of honor. In today’s cynical world, it’s hard to releate to a character like Armstrong, but in the 1960s through the early 1990s, it wasn’t that way.
As great of a babyface as Armstrong was, he was an even better heel. Though his heel run was short and, by his own admission, he did not like being a heel, he was honestly one of the best heels I ever saw.
On the latest entry into the Classic July Wrestling marathon, we will talk about a man who fathered another generation of wrestlers after him: Scott Armstrong (still a WWE referee to this day), Brad Armstrong (one of the best in ring wrestlers of his day), Steve Armstrong, and Brian “Road Dogg” James (a WWE agent today). Enjoy Karl Stern’s look at the career of “Bullet” Bob Armstrong!
Super Stern Stick flash drives are still available through this month only. Order now!
The DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Audio Show July 2016 marathon begins today with 32 shows in one month with a theme of “people who made me a fan of pro wrestling”.
If you have listened to Karl’s show over the years, you probably already know that this series could only kick off with one man- Mr. Olympia, aka Jerry Stubbs. He might not have been a big national star but if you lived south of Tennessee from the Atlantic Ocean to Texas, then you likely know that Stubbs is one of the more underrated people in pro wrestling.
Working as either a heel or babyface, Stubbs was great on the promos and excellent in the ring. He had great feuds and teamed with many big names in wrestling including Junkyard Dog, Ted DiBiase, Arn Anderson, Stan Lane, Brad Armstrong, Dirty White Boy, Bob Armstrong, Mr. Wrestling 2, and many others. He also was one of the first people to use the Scorpion/Sharpshooter in the U.S.
There is probably a lot you might not know about this underated star of the 1980s, and on this show, Karl will give you all the details and more.
Today’s show is free for all but the rest of the month requires a membership to F4W – Wrestling Observer website.
This is also the last month to get the Stern Stick 16gb Flashdrive full of wrestling history: 500+ podcasts and over 500 pdf/text files dealing with pro wrestling history. Order now and get free shipping worldwide! Visit Karl’s website for more information.
Gilberto Melendez, who for years was known as the oldest active pro wrestler, passed away Wednesday night.
Melendez wrestled regularly until about five years ago, and was one of the few people who wrestled in seven different decades. While there was a 1950s era Midwest junior heavyweight start Gypsy Joe who preceded him and who his records are sometimes confused with, he was a legitimate name from the 60s through the early 90s when he worked under a mask as El Grande Pistolero.
He wrestled under a number of other names, including Gene Madrid, not to be confused with Jan Madrid.
He was best known as a mid-card regular in the 70s and early 80s with All Japan Pro Wrestling with his gimmick being his toughness and his ability to absorb wickedly hard chair shots, often to the back but sometimes to the head. He was also a training fanatic who maintained an impressive physique into his late 50s and, to a degree, into his early 70s.
He wrestled regularly in Japan from 1977 to 1993, starting in the IWE promotion where he had bloody matches with Rusher Kimura, including being the first person to come off the top rope in a cage match. After IWE went down, he began as a regular with All Japan, working mostly mid-card matches. At the end, he was working for the W*ING promotion, although he wrestled as late as 2002 in Japan. He was known for hardcore brawling and bloody style matches.
He was best known as a journeyman wrestler in Tennessee with his best success coming from 1977 to 1980 working for Nick Gulas where he held a multitude of tag team championships with Frankie Martinez under a mask as The Blue Infernos.
He started wrestling in 1951 in Puerto Rico, and came to the U.S. in 1963, working for the WWWF.
Joe had serious health issues with gout in recent years which caused his right foot to be amputated in 2013.
Photo of Mike Jackson selling his “broken shoulder” by Karl Stern
This is the first of two mailbag heavy shows with a broad range of questions and topics. Email your questions for the next mailbag show now!
On this show, topics and questions include:
– Undisputed world heavyweight champions including champions from the past such as Ed “Strangler” Lewis and Frank Gotch and how the world title split into various championships
– Paul Heyman hypocrisy and a very good question on whether or not he is getting a free pass from journalists
– Promoting indy shows in the 1990s and who was a pleasure to work with
– The most insane publication, maybe in history, the National Police Gazette…and much more!
This show literally has something from everyone from the Civil War era to today, hitting almost every era in between. When you can talk about wrestlers as diverse as Frank A. Gotch, Shane Douglas, Mike Jackson, Demolition, and Verne Gagne, that is a great show!
On this week’s show, the conversation is about all the new classic, old-school wrestling shows which have been added lately to the WWE Network.
Finally taking advantage of their incredible tape library, WWE has finally added a sizeable amount of classic content to the online network. Included among the newly added material is NWA World Championship Wrestling from TBS, late-era AWA, Mid-South Srestling, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, more World Class Championship Wrestling, Global Wrestling Federation, and even some Stampede Wrestling from Calgary…for a few days anyway.
Karl also discusses the animated David Crockett and apparently, his dog hates him. Who knew? Then in the second half of the show, Karl takes a few questions out of the mailbag including some follow up emails from the Monsters Of Wrestling show he did back around Halloween. We learn more about the Los Angeles Monster and hockey masked maniacs.
Please check out the Super Stern Stick Flash Drive from Karl’s website to take advantage of a holiday season special offer!
On this special family-friendly edition of the Karl Stern Show, the Dragon King (and his wife!) talk about buying gifts for the wrestling fan in your life this holiday season.
It can be intimidating for a non-fan to buy gifts for a wrestling fan, so Karl’s wife sits down with him to talk about what she looks for, our thoughts on various wrestling related items available out there, Mattel action figures, wrestling video games, lucha libre masks, and thinking outside the box.
We review the Mattel Four Horseman Hall of Fame action figure set, a lucha libre mask, talk a little bit about the WWE 2K16 video game, subscription services, plus some outside the box ideas for the wrestling fan and collector.
It’s a unique show that I hope you and your significant other (or children or parents or whatever) can enjoy. Gather the kids around the speakers and enjoy!
On the latest episode of the DragonKing Classic Wrestling Show, host Karl Stern bring you the latest in a series of wrestler biographies. This week, Karl takes a look at the incredibly popular, mythical, and controversial “Intelligent Monster” Frank “Bruiser Brody” Goodish.
Brody was a wild bearded powerhouse who ran roughshod through the United States, Japan, and Puerto Rico before his untimely death in 1988 at the hands of Jose “The Invader 1” Gonzalez. Until his death by stabbing in 1988, he was one of the biggest business stars in the world. In Japan, it was reported that at times he made in excess of $14,000 per week. It is impossible to tell the tale of recent biography focuses like Stan “The Lariat” Hansen and Abdullah the Butcher without also telling the story of Bruiser Brody.
Attached to this show is a special audio bonus feature! Karl recorded an audio companion for the Super Stern Stick Flash Drive based on issue 35 of the DragonKing Press Newsletter. That issue dealt with the death of Brody as told by some of the people that were there or later talked to Jose Gonzalez including Tony Atlas (the closest thing to an eyewitness), Dutch Mantell, and “Nightmare” Ken Wayne.
I hope you enjoy this show and a detailed look at the crazy life and untimely death of Bruiser Brody.
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