GeneralQuarters
Elite Member
My two favs..Archie The Stomper and Rick Flair!
Flashback! Back in 1968 or 9...I dont know, right around the that time frame, we lived in East Detroit in a mixed race blue collar automotive neighborhood...Tigers won the World Series over the Cards...Schwinn Banana seat Applecrates were in fashion....Riots, Hell Night, Vietnam, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, spelling bees, paper routes, good Humor Man, all sorts of excitement for a kid to impossibly process or make sense out of....
I was 9 or 10 yrs old...All us kids played and fought together all the time, we actually liked each other and admired an individuals strengths and skills...Blacks, Whites, Jews, Persians all mishmashed into an area and hemmed in by the Detroit River, forcing us to fight or get along....
We all judged each other not by the color of our carapace but the content of our capability...
So one night, for no apparent reason, our Dads loaded us all up and took us to Cobo Hall for to witness a 'Big Time' Wrestling event!....all the block kids, the Nix boys, the Haddads and Saads, the Kutnic kids, the Reynolds, even the Waldman Jewish kids! ......I dont know why the old guys did this?...It was the damndest thing!!
So there we all were, at Cobo Hall.....Bobo Brazil! The Sheik! Pampero Firpo the Wild Man from the Pampas! Some Japanese Kabuki guy blowing blinding dust into his opponents eyes! Some freaky guy had his teeth filed like a Great White Shark and liked to bite his opponents!
It was overwhelming for us young boys! For me anyway! WTH? I was severely traumatized! As whats his name penned..."The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd'!
Witnessing Grown Men beating the hell out of each other! Basically predicated by Race or Religion? All our Dads cheering and drinking? It was like Damn! Lifechanging experience! ...Confusing? I'm like.. I gotta get a job working automotive assembly and start hating the right people!! I'm sure all us boys felt this..Like what? I'm supposed to hate you!..We are supposed to beat the royal hell out of each other!.
Anyway,...We made it home and Sat Morn showed up... Sir Graves Ghastly's Sat Am Fright program seemed to be like watching Mr. Rogers...So I went outside on the block...looked around, then took a folding chair and knocked Johnny Kutnic off his Applecrate for no reason, except he was a Protestant and his folks had money...Then I curbstomped the Reynolds twins, who were Irish Catholics and certainly deserved it for some reason...
figuring to do a block mop up, I went after the Nix's around lunchtime on account of they were black Baptists, but there was three of them and they put up a hell of a fight...It was a draw, I was exhausted, so Mohammed Saad got off easy along with David Waldman....Which is odd right?.
I shoulda known....Looking back, I might have got a side fight going on with the Waldmans and the Saads while I dealt with the Protestants, Catholics and Blacks?? Thats a no brainer! Ants in a jar! Ya see, this is where Jimmy Hoffa had the understanding!
.
..So quick answer, Bobo Brazil!.....
Flashback! Back in 1968 or 9...I dont know, right around the that time frame, we lived in East Detroit in a mixed race blue collar automotive neighborhood...Tigers won the World Series over the Cards...Schwinn Banana seat Applecrates were in fashion....Riots, Hell Night, Vietnam, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, spelling bees, paper routes, good Humor Man, all sorts of excitement for a kid to impossibly process or make sense out of....
I was 9 or 10 yrs old...All us kids played and fought together all the time, we actually liked each other and admired an individuals strengths and skills...Blacks, Whites, Jews, Persians all mishmashed into an area and hemmed in by the Detroit River, forcing us to fight or get along....
We all judged each other not by the color of our carapace but the content of our capability...
So one night, for no apparent reason, our Dads loaded us all up and took us to Cobo Hall for to witness a 'Big Time' Wrestling event!....all the block kids, the Nix boys, the Haddads and Saads, the Kutnic kids, the Reynolds, even the Waldman Jewish kids! ......I dont know why the old guys did this?...It was the damndest thing!!
So there we all were, at Cobo Hall.....Bobo Brazil! The Sheik! Pampero Firpo the Wild Man from the Pampas! Some Japanese Kabuki guy blowing blinding dust into his opponents eyes! Some freaky guy had his teeth filed like a Great White Shark and liked to bite his opponents!
It was overwhelming for us young boys! For me anyway! WTH? I was severely traumatized! As whats his name penned..."The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd'!
Witnessing Grown Men beating the hell out of each other! Basically predicated by Race or Religion? All our Dads cheering and drinking? It was like Damn! Lifechanging experience! ...Confusing? I'm like.. I gotta get a job working automotive assembly and start hating the right people!! I'm sure all us boys felt this..Like what? I'm supposed to hate you!..We are supposed to beat the royal hell out of each other!.
Anyway,...We made it home and Sat Morn showed up... Sir Graves Ghastly's Sat Am Fright program seemed to be like watching Mr. Rogers...So I went outside on the block...looked around, then took a folding chair and knocked Johnny Kutnic off his Applecrate for no reason, except he was a Protestant and his folks had money...Then I curbstomped the Reynolds twins, who were Irish Catholics and certainly deserved it for some reason...
figuring to do a block mop up, I went after the Nix's around lunchtime on account of they were black Baptists, but there was three of them and they put up a hell of a fight...It was a draw, I was exhausted, so Mohammed Saad got off easy along with David Waldman....Which is odd right?.
I shoulda known....Looking back, I might have got a side fight going on with the Waldmans and the Saads while I dealt with the Protestants, Catholics and Blacks?? Thats a no brainer! Ants in a jar! Ya see, this is where Jimmy Hoffa had the understanding!
.
..So quick answer, Bobo Brazil!.....