When The Men Were Men And The Masks Were Crimson

This is the first part of our profile of stars from the 70's and 80's. For Kamala, Magnum TA, Outlaw Ron Bass and Superstar Graham see our "When Red Meant Green" post from late June. Also our four part series on the Pioneering Divas of wrestling featuring Sunshine, Baby Doll, Missy Hyatt, Madusa, Misty Blue Simmes, Chyna, Sunny, Sable, Lita and more is under the "Seminal Sluts" titles (Parts 1-3) and "Strapping A Stranglehold On The Bald-Headed Champ" (Part 4). Thanks for dropping by...and for once I honestly mean that.   

    Some people can't help, but want to arrest their adolescence. We got an ugly taste of this recently when it was discovered that both aging ex-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kline had taken enough runs at their hired help to make you believe if Mr. B turned his back for more than 30 seconds they'd have jumped Hazel like R. Kelly on a kindergartner.

    Then just last weekend 79 year-old Joseph Brooks, the writer/director/producer and Oscar Award winning songwriter of the movie/tune You Light Up My Life, comitted suicide rather than face multiple charges that he lured aspiring, young actresses to his Manhattan apartment for phony auditions only to assault them sexually. Reports indicated that Brooks took his life through use of a "Helium Bag", a procedure he learned from  mail-order books on methods of assisted suicide. Tomes whose very necessity begs the age old question-weren't there any tall buildings or speeding trains in his neighborhood?

    Even sadder are accounts that halfway through the attempt Mr. Brooks may have changed his mind, but his cries for help from inside the gas-filled bag were ignored by neighbors who mistook his pleas for children watching Alvin and The Chipmunks-The Squee-quel.

   So in other words you can't turn back time and when you try to things aren't always as good as you remember anyway. A case in point is pro wrestling. You Tube and other video sites are loaded with the matches and grappling stars of our youth, but like the myriad boyfriends of Renee Zellweger can attest what starts out attractive often gets less and less so the more time that goes by.

    Simply put wrestling in the '70's and early '80's wasn't better than today, it was just different. Weekly TV shows were nothing more than squash-filled  infomercials for main event house shows where the real money was made. And even there most of the moves were so bland (punches, stomps, armbars, headlocks) and the matches so predictable it was to today's pay-per-view extravaganzas what the "David Caruso Manual of Acting" is to a Lee Strasberg course.

    Still the characters from those days, their mannerisms, catch-phrases and actions remain with me as vividly as the golden memory of my induction into the "Mile High Club"-I soloed. So in the style of our mildly popular "Seminal Sluts" series here's some insolent insights into those heroes of yesteryear.

1. Chief Jay Strongbow- It's one of the ironies of my life as an American that Indians have always seemed to get the best of me. They've handed me my ass at their casinos, lacrosse balls seem intuitively attracted to my testicular region and I swear until 2009 I thought Atlanta Braves mascot Chief Nocahoma was a reference to some pre-Columbian tribal leader and not a bad pun/play on words.

    That notwithstanding Chief Jay Strongbow fooled me about as much as the extended warranty from Best Buy or the "can we see you for a second in the garage" radiator flush at Jiffy Lube. Wahoo McDaniel was a Native American (Choctaw-Chickasaw tribe), Tatanka was a Native American (Lakota tribe), but the closest Philadelphia's Joe Scarpa (real name) came to being an Indian was the two years his family lived in Cleveland when he was a teenager.

    Still there is nothing quite so suspended as the disbelief of the average wrestling fan and thus all it took in the late 1950's was a dark complection and a stilted, monotone for Italian-American Scarpa to become the least likely Tribesman this side of the Borscht Belt comedians who portrayed The Hekawis on F Troop.

    And by the late 60's/early 70's Chief Jay had established himself as a main event tag team competitor throughout the Northeast winning the WWWF belts on 4 seperate occasions with 3 different partners (Sonny King, Billy White Wolf and Jules Strongbow twice). Additionally, he so helped popularize the sleeper hold that he has been referenced along with the move in such diverse pop culture spheres as TV's Boston Legal and the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy.

    Alas all was not always Belts and Buffalo for the Big Chief. His famous "War Dance" comeback is often invoked as the inspiration that inflicted Hulk Hogan's "Hulking Up" routine on us so there were some regrets. He also hung around a bit too long, returning to the then WWF after his 50th birthday. There, under the booking of Vince McMahon, Jr., he became the butt of running jokes. My last impression of him being standing forlornly in a parking lot as "Captain Redneck" Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis ran down his Teepee with a pickup truck on an episode of Tuesday Night Titans while Strongbow stood by with a tear in his eye like someone had just thrown a sack of White Castle garbage at his feet on the side of the highway.

    However, Chief Jay is still kicking today at age 83 and was inducted into the non-promotional Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame in Amsterdam, New York in 2009. He's no Rocky Balboa, but all in all not bad for an Italian immigrants' son from South Philly.

2. Mr. Wrestling II- In his prime Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams was tall, handsome, athletic and could hit a baseball like nobody's business hence the nickname "Teddy Ballgame". At age 37 pro wrestler Johnny "Rubberman" Walker was short, balding and going to fat so, without a second thought, the bumbling brains behind the business decided to hand him a mask and the moniker "Mr. Wrestling".

    Of course there was already a Mr. Wrestling I portrayed by the much more likely candidate Tim Woods, a strapping 6 foot, 230 pounder who twice was named an NCAA All-American wrestler at Michigan State. But even after surviving the perilous plane crash  that ended the career of legendary grappler Johnny Valentine and nearly beat the man before he even became the man by breaking the back of then rookie Ric Flair Woods was still magnanimous enough to share the Mr. W persona with Walker who he knew well from their then legendary Florida feud in 1970.

    For several months that year Woods as Mr. Wrestling and Walker, then working as The Grappler, toured the Seminole Circuit battling over the princely sum of $500. An amount so ridiculously low it reminds me of the old Unicef boxes or Sally Struthers late-night Beg-A-Thons that claimed a nickel a week could feed a family of 4 in some drought-stricken African nation for an entire year. To which I used to say,"tell you what, here's a quarter buy that condo you've been looking at"; or better yet get Sally to give up a couple meals and you'll all be driving Mercedes in no time.

    Throughout the mid-70's the pair worked together as a highly successful tag team before II began a main event singles run with Georgia Championship Wrestling. From 1973-80 he won the prestigious Georgia Heavyweight Title 10 times knocking off the likes of Nikolai Volkoff, Harley Race, Stan Hansen and Austin Idol with his patented "Million Dollar" Knee Lift a move so uninspiring it has gone the way of Travel Agents and African-American Third Baseman (where have you gone Charlie Hayes?) in today's Pro Wrestling game.

    Today Walker runs a wrestling school in Hawaii that develops talent for a Don Muraco-led promotion in the Pacific. And even at age 75 he could no doubt take down this wise-ass wrestling blogger faster than Keith Olbermann at a Tea Party Rally so I'll conclude by saying best of luck to a man who truly earned the title "Mr. Wrestling".
Jimmy Carter & Wrestling II-If only the President had handled OPEC this forcefully.

3. Ivan Putski- According to the Online World of Wrestling site Putski has to be the most popular wrestler ever to not win a singles title. Back in the mid-70's when Ivan came to the ring smiling ear-to-ear, carrying kids on his shoulder and speaking in broken English it was obvious he was a fan favorite with few peers. Nonetheless he was cast in a role that made him everything that Mickey Dolenz was not, that is a "stepping stone" for wrestlers on their way to title shots.

    During his time in the WWWF the stocky, barrel chested Polish Power put over a list of challengers to Bruno Sammartino's crown that included but was not limited to Stan Hansen, Bobby Duncum, Bruiser Brody, Superstar Graham and Baron Von Raschke. Until finally as the '80's approached he could apparently take it no more.

    He disappeared from TV for awhile, found a friendly HGH dealer and returned with a physique as shredded as pulled pork. Sadly though wrestling fans prefer their Polish wrestlers to be happy-go-lucky, kielbasa swinging, Bobby Vinton singing simpletons. Kinda like The Mighty Igor who was not the same guy for those still wondering.

    Perhaps the saddest part of this tale is that from my extensive, albeit mostly inebriated, research it appears Putski is one of the sweetest guys to ever grace the squared circle. He's still alive today and was last seen working as a security guard at a High School outside Dallas where students would be best advised to carry a Hall Pass lest they be Polish Hammer-ed on the way to the bathroom. Nas Darovia!

4. Stan "The Man" Stasiak- One of my favorite Far Side cartoons features the heading "Parts Unknown High School Reunion" and depicts various masked men standing around a punch bowl with one saying, "...after graduation I got into wrestling..."

    I guess I was always fascinated with how wrestlers in the era of the old style entrance (i.e.- no music, just name, weight, hometown) often tried to get across their gimmick with where they were supposedly from. My favorites included Cactus Jack from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; Louis Cyr from the Wilds of the Yukon; The Hangman from Europe (they couldn't pin him down to a country even?); and Stan Stasiak from Buzzards Creek, Oregon.

    The self-proclaimed master of another move that has gone into the attics of the ring game, the Heart Punch, Stasiak was the William Henry Harrison of the WWWF winning the title from Pedro Morales then dropping it 9 days later to Bruno Sammartino. A transition guy not unlike Gerald Ford only Stasiak took less bumps.

    Additionally, he sported the nastiest pair of Mutton Chops this side of a Renaissance Fair and sired a second generation grappler in son Sean who had a run in the WWE as Meat under the management of the Pretty Mean Sisters (PMS, I know subtle), Terri Runnels and Ryan Shamrock. Sadly in one of the more ironic moments since they named the country's National Airport after Ronald Reagan, the man who fired en masse every air traffic controller, Stasiak died of heart failure. A champion and legit tough guy to the end.
Come to think of it I never actually saw Stan Stasiak and Chris Farley together...hmmm?!?


5. Jimmy Valiant- In the 1960's Jimmy Valiant was known as "The Handsome One" with matinee idol looks and a pristine Babyface persona. By the time I began watching wrestling in the mid-70's, though, it appeared he had swallowed ZZ Top and his next legal manuever would be his first. He was still a Babyface, but he had morphed from "Handsome" Jimmy into the Grizzly Adams meets Gene Gene The Dancing Machine "Boogie Woogie Man" who never met an eye he wouldn't rake or crotch he wouldn't low blow.

    It's said you know you've gotten old when kids stop laughing at you when you accidentally fall down and instead immediately call for an ambulance. And as we moved into the '80's I had Atlanta area EMTs on speed dial every time I watched Jimmy Valiant wrestle. With wild hair, long fingernails and chest-length beard the suddenly emaciated Boogie Woogie Man looked less like a threat in the ring and more like Howard Hughes sans the urine jars.

    Still manager Paul Jones threw every member of his "Army" short of Seal Team 6 at Valiant during this period, including Shaska Whately, The Barbarian, Warlord, Manny Fernandez, Teijo Khan and assorted Russians, but couldn't take the Boogie Man down.

    The most memorable moment, though, of this long-running feud had to be when "Raging Bull" Manny Fernandez turned on his former tag partner and joined Jones' Army. Georgia Championship Wrestling then ran a vignette where Valiant was seen sitting in an alley amidst empty beer cans playing the blues on a harmonica. Unsurprised to see a camera crew a teary-eyed Boogie looks into the lens
and asks his former friend to reconsider by imploring, "...but we were in 'Nam together, man!"

    Now I've been willing to overlook a lot of things in my time watching wrestling, from the idea that Toru Tanaka was a Professor to Bam Bam Bigelow carrying The Communist Manifesto to the ring in WCCW when they ran short of Soviets, but Jimmy Valiant was in Vietnam like I was first man off the boat at Anzio.

    Ultimately, time took care of what Paul Jones' Army could not. Aged hard by the rigors of the road the breakup of the regional teritories left Valiant without a home. Sporting a 2 foot braided beard, ass-length bleached blonde hair and a repetoire of dance moves that could make Elaine Benes look like Hines Ward the Boogie Man did the only thing he could and opened a wrestling school in North Carolina where he continues to train youngsters to this day. A man made for the business keep on workin' it "Mr. Willy Willy Billy Billy"!

6. Abdullah The Butcher- According to the World Health Organization website if Abdullah the Butcher was, as billed, from Khartoum he would be by far the fattest man to ever come from the Sudan. At somewhere in the area of 500 pounds his flapping, chafing Man Breasts were a consistent reminder that as I got older my one and only fitness goal was not to get tits.

    In actuality Larry Shreve (real name) is from Topeka or Montreal depending on which website you believe, but that not withstanding his "Wildman From The Sudan" gimmick will go down as one of the best the business has ever known. And his feuds with Bruiser Brody in World Class, Puerto Rico and Japan are the stuff of legend. Well worth the computer time if you've never seen them.

    Like Brody and The Shiek of Detroit Wrestling fame Abby's game was built on giving the people what they want...and what they wanted was blood. The Butcher bladed his forehead so often throughout his career that Mick Foley reported in his memoir Have A Nice Day that Abby could hold coins and poker chips in the deep scars on his forehead which I guess is cooler than having a velcro wallet.

   The only problem is with his dark skin tone and shaved head the blood Abdullah produced never seemed to be that profuse unlike...

7. Tommy "Wildfire" Rich- ...the man who I believe inspired Gordon Solie's famous cry of "his face is a Crimson Mask". You see red on white produces a much better visual effect and Tommy Rich wasn't just pale, he was translucent. He could make WWE star Seamus look like George Hamilton. At the beach there wasn't an SPF high enough short of mayonaise. Add in bone white bleach blonde hair and it's no wonder Rich was often captioned in pro wrestling mags as "bleeding like a stuck pig".

    A huge fan favorite in Georgia Rich won basically every title there was in the Mid-Atlantic/Georgia/Florida territories. We're also happy to add the immense blood loss had no ill effects and you can find Wildfire happily posing with his wife on his FaceBook page still just a shaving nick away from a Hemophilia PSA.
Abdullah and Tommy Rich doing what they do best...and that guy in the white hat doing God knows what?!?

    I literally can't type anymore so maybe we'll get to Magnum T.A., The Great Kabuki, Kamala and Sgt. Slaughter some other time. If there are any other old school stars you'd like to see profiled leave a comment. In the meantime remember the site's on FaceBook and at "sprtcom102" on Twitter and as soon as we figure out where the "Source Code" bar is on this freakin' site we'll put up the links. I honestly hate everything...good night!

Making Toast With The Blow Dryer

    So, like a Steven Strasborg start or the debut of Spiderman: The Musical, the Rapture has been pushed back to a new date once again-October 21, 2011. Some in the media are calling end of the world prognosticator Harold Camping a marketing genius for all the attention he's garnered, but frankly I'm really not seeing the "end game" here. I mean if you're wrong you'll be ridiculed mercilessly before your friends and family and if you're right, well, you're in even deeper sh*t...kinda like my first marriage (for more on my ex-wife see December's Humanitarian Bowl Preview, Fresno State section).

    Until then, however, let's take care of a little housekeeping...

1. It's been brought to my attention that some Internet Filters used by schools, libraries and assorted places of business have denied access to this site as being "Pornographic". To waylay your fears let me assure you that there is nothing, whatsoever, pornographic on this blog...and, trust me, by the number of 2 and 3 A.M. time stamps on these posts you know I know porno. Or as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said from the bench in 1964, "I could never hope to intelligibly define pornography...but I know it when I see it." Amen, brother!

2. Next for those writing about my profile photo...yes, I always look like that. As my "unchanged from the '80's" hairstyle will attest I was in a bit of a "depeche mode" that day, but thanks for asking. And no I will not be changing the pic as first I rarely allow myself to be photographed since I believe it steals a piece of your soul-my mother had Cherokee in her, it wasn't of her own choosing but you're bored, drunk and in Oklahoma only once-and of those photos I do have it's hard to find one in which my hair does not resemble that of 19th Century South Carolina Senator and Vice President John C. Calhoun.Not exactly a barrel of laughs, but he knew his way around a "nullification" argument.

3. And finally, our next post, in which we return to an era of wrestling when Luchadores were what was on Univision after the guy in the Bumblebee suit and Ric Flair was coherent, will be up by Monday. Ivan Putski, Mr. Wrestling II, Jimmy Valiant and Abdullah The Butcher among others will be profiled so check back.

Have a great holiday weekend and I believe if you've learned anything here...seriously, stay off the drugs.

The Dumbest Guy In The Room

    On May 12th John Demjanjuk, a 91 year-old former guard at Sobibor Concentration Camp, was convicted in Munich on 27,900 counts of accessory to murder for his part in Hitler's "Final Solution". At sentencing, though, he was given a mere five years meaning between time served, good behavior and Germany's liberal penal code this murdering SOB could be on the streets in 18 months just itching to kill again. According to news reports the judge was apparently swayed by Mr. Demjanjuk's pleas for mercy in which he cited his advanced age, his infirmity and claimed that, "at least I'm no Lenny Dykstra". Indeed.

    For even against the incredibly low moral bar set by his peer group Dykstra may ultimately be the worst person in the history of sports. Sure O.J. might have turned Nicole Brown into a cadaverous Pez dispenser, an anatomy challenged Rae Carruth did try to abort his unborn child by shooting his girlfriend in the face, drug lord wannabe "Bam" Morris pushed more herb than Emeril-which might explain his nickname come to think of it-and Lawrence Phillips is serving 10 to 15  for attempting to run down a teenage flag football referee with his SUV (in his defense we didn't see the call), but by the time they're finished tallying "Lootin'" Lenny's mounting list of felonies it seems they'll make these indiscretions seem no worse than my misdemeanor for drunkenly peeing on the Grassy Knoll at Dealey Plaza while declaring myself the "Second Shooter".

    In fact the mere thought that Dykstra has usurped the title of "Biggest Criminal on the 1986 Mets" of Strawberry, Gooden, Backman and McDowell fame is frightening enough. Kinda like being the nuttiest kid on Growing Pains, though in Tracey Gold and Andrew "Boner" Koenig's defense I might have stuck a finger down my throat or gun to my head had I had to listen to Kirk Cameron's puzzlingly pious proselytizing for 6 seasons as well.

    Rather than ramble on though let's look at a timeline of the dirty deeds of this delinquent of the diamond, a collection that I think you'll agree could almost make Michael Vick look like St. Francis of Assisi:

1991: Drunk Driving. Ah yes the "Gateway Crime" for our ballin' bad boys. Lenny left John Kruk's bachelor party at 1 A.M. on May 7th and promptly wrapped his Mercedes, himself and passenger Darren Daulton around an oak tree in Radnor, PA resulting in numerous injuries and a breathalyzer reading of .179 or more than twice the legal limit which prompted many a sports fan to wonder..."someone is actually marrying John Kruk?" Years later when asked if he'd lost money in any of Dykstra's failed business ventures the aforementioned Daulton, who has written a book on Numerology and told sports radio listeners he believes in the Mayan prophecy of the world ending in 2012, responded- "what am I f---ing crazy?"

1992: Lenny "tilts" worse than Mike Matusow getting "rivered" in the Tower of Pisa during a weekend poker session losing $88,000 to a Mississippi gambler and winds up with a year's probation from Commissioner Fay Vincent upon discovery of the incident.

1999: Retired and owner of a string of successful car washes the then married Dykstra propositions a 17 year old employee. The subsequent sexual harassment suit is settled out of court and somewhere Luis Polonia lamented the loss of another potential Date Night "go-to" couple.

2003: The Len-Man enters the stock touting game. Considering he once told Billy Beane he stopped reading in High School because it was bad for his batting eye it's hard to see him pouring over Quarterly Reports and Balance Sheets with any diligence. Yet his website claims fantastic returns and Jim Cramer "boo-yahs" him into a Guest Analyst spot on the TheStreet.com while declaring him a "financial genius" which no doubt made the likes of Warren Buffett and Steve Forbes feel considerably de-valued. Later it would be discovered that Dykstra's claim of having a 100% success rate on the stocks in his online portfolio was due to the fact that he only "sold" equities out of that portfolio that increased in value. All the losers rolled over month after month waiting for a turnaround at which point, if it ever came, Lenny would sell and declare another winner. Kinda the way I still consider that stash of Dave Magadan rookie cards a potential asset when calculating my net value.

    And before we move on let me take a moment to provide a public service warning by espousing my theory on any ex-athlete that gets into high profile sales. In short I find it analogous to the married guy who's at the gym working out 6 days a week. You just know he's up to something. I mean the game's over, guy, take off the uniform. And when they can't it's best to keep yourself and your money as far away as possible.

2006: With the car wash business falling apart faster than the plot of '70's porn film Dykstra partner Lindsay Jones goes public with allegations that Lenny used steroids in the '90's and advised him when to bet on the Phillies with the winnings serving as payment for loans. Dykstra immediately denies the steroid allegations only...

2007: ...to find himself included prominently in the Mitchell Report whose claims he refutes only...

2007: ...to be featured one week later in the Jason Grimsley affadavit on sales of steriods to MLB players.

2008: Undaunted, in the first half of the year, Dykstra launches plans for a high-end magazine aimed at the needs of professional athletes called Player's Club, opens up Nails Investments, a financial planning company that frankly sounds like a Korean money laundering scheme, and buys Wayne Gretzky's mansion for $18 million with loans from Countrywide and Washington Mutual, a literal Who's Who of the Sub-Prime Mortgage disaster. Then on September 18 the stock market goes into it's worst tailspin since the Great Depression and the Dykstra empire slides into the biggest spiral this side of the day ABC decides to move Cougar Town from it's post-Modern Family timeslot.

2009: After having $58 million in assets in 2008 Lenny files for bankruptcy claiming less the $50K in the black and over $25 million in the red. His wife files for divorce, he is charged with credit card fraud, gets barred from his properties and in the harshest sibling treatment this side of Abel and the Unabomber (who, with new reports surfacing that big bro wants the FBI to look at him for the 1980's Tylenol Poisoning case, has been "fingered" by his brother as often as an Appalachian Beauty Queen) Lenny's brother's go on record in the press as saying he "deserves to pay" and should do jail time.

2010:  Lenny meets the girl of my dreams, an escort who agrees to take a check (I knew she was out there), named Monica Foster. When the check bounces Foster posts it on the Web and pleads with the Internet community to help her gain restitution. After the laughter subsides LD gets charged with sexual assault on his housekeeper which combined with his bankruptcy proceedings qualified him to be either a guest of the State of California at San Quentin or Chief of the International Monetary Fund depending on available openings.

2011 "Nails" is nailed again in California on charges of possesion of cocaine and ecstasy. At his arraignment the judge labels him a "drugged up danger" which in a strange twist just happens to be the vanity license plates issued to Courtney Love. When the destitute Dykstra can't go his bail rumors swirl that more successful mess Charlie Sheen comes to his aid. Though Sheen's publicist denies the charge the self-proclaimed "Rock Star from Mars" does tweet, "my dear friend Nails is a fellow Vatican Assasin and his best friend is a Warlock!" Not the type of stuff you want coming up at your parole hearing, but thoughtful just the same.

    And so here is the point where I'm supposed to rant about how Lenny Dykstra's sordid situation proves that we're all idiots for wasting our time, emotions and hard-earned money on moral reprobates who care not one wit about the conventions of society or the people who worship them and/or the games they play, but in fact this story, I believe, has proved the opposite. Dykstra very well may be the worst person to ever play professional sports, but, steroid allegations aside, we did like and respect him as a ballplayer because he was successful in a world governed by hard and fast rules where over time winners and losers are proven fairly and equivocally. In the real world this happens, not so much. BS, lying, back stabbing, ass kissing, nepotism, who you are and not what you are all factor into the equation. And in that environment Lenny Dykstra, but for his overwhelming greed, nearly pulled off the con job of the century. So watch your sports, play in a Rec league, beat up the video games and for an hour or two win or lose on your own merit because tomorrow some humorless, functional illiterate, substance abusing, womanizer is sure to be trying to get his hand in your pocket...and, believe me, not in the good way.

The face of a "Financial Genius"

And don't forget we're on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Bowling-Til-It-Hurts/144323018970626 or Twitter at "sprtcom102". It may not be "good" for you, but when you look back on the best times of your life which one of them really was.

The House Of Fire And Broken Glass; Or How I Child-Proofed My Home

    After another arduous week of dealing with the peevishly, perturbing public, or even worse their kids, I can't help, but be reminded of the words of the 20th Century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre to his longtime companion and Women's Rights Activist Simone de Beauvoir, "Hell is other people!...What?...No, not you, I mean 'other' other people." And now that several students have discovered this site they are constantly pestering me to be included in a post which raises the professional question- "Does dumbass have a hyphen?"

    Though I guess I should be happy that at least someone is paying attention and I'm not exerting all this effort only to be ignored in favor of more stylish, aesthetically pleasing peers like some blogosphere version of that one little, fat Dixie Chick.

    That said I wanted to take a moment to touch on a few things as we reach a milestone of 50 posts here. First to the guy who keeps sending me Mafia Games requests on my Facebook page sorry, but I'm not a Gamer. I choose to escape reality the old-fashioned way: Alcohol.

    Beyond that we should have two posts available next week. For those who've grown weary of Pro Wrestling they'll be a story on the Worst Person in the History of Sports...and it's not Ben Roethlisberger nor did he ever play for the Cincinnati Bengals. For those who enjoyed the Squared Circle Sarcasm they'll be more as we reach back to our earliest TV watching days to profile the likes of Chief Jay Strongbow, Ivan Putski, Ox Baker, The Great Kabuki and more.

    And finally for those who wondered if I'd built in a Site Map...yeah have another suck on the water pipe there, Spicoli. However I will give you a brief Table of Contents below.

   Until we post again feel free to follow our drunken tweets at "Beieber-liciou...oh wait wrong blog...at "sprtcom102" or check us out on FB at "Bowling Til' It Hurts". Thanks for participating.

BTIH Table of Contents

DECEMBER: College Football Bowl Previews; origin of the site name; Cam Newton article ("Father of the Year"); cheerleader pics.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY: NFL Team Previews, playoff prognostications; Rex Ryan mocking, worst Super Bowl followup teams, cheerleader pics.

MARCH: New York Mets bashing, Harry Caray on Denise Milani at a Dodger game; suggestive photos.

APRIL: Pioneering Women of Wrestling Four Part Series- 1. "Seminal Sluts of the Squared Circle", 2. "A Carnal Chronicle of Cleavage", 3. "Seminal Sluts Simplex 3", 4. "Strapping a Stranglehold on the Bald-Headed Champ".
Did I read Tiger Woods dropped out of the TPC after 9 Ho's...or 9 holes?

Cristie Kerr after shooting a 69 (no, seriously) to win the Dinah Shore Open...and suddenly I have a craving for Cheerios.

Strapping A Stranglehold On The Bald-Headed Champ

Ed. Note: This is the 4th in our 4 part series on the pioneering Divas of wrestling. Please refer back to the "Seminal Sluts" title in previous posts so as to maintain the full story arc; or in other words to not miss out on the rest of the low-brow humor and boob jokes. Have fun!

  Osama Bin Laden was still alive? I coulda swore they'd been propping him up like Weekend At Bernie's since '05. Be that as it may welcome to the 4th and final installment on the Pioneering Women of Wrestling where we'll wrap up the major players, snidely dismiss some of the ancillary accessories and finally be able to move on to weightier issues in the world of sports like what the hell is up with Mel Kiper's hair these days?

    So in closing I've always seen the arc of women in wrestling during my lifetime as similiar to that of "Barker's Beauties" on The Price Is Right...it's been a long run, just work with me on this.

    For at the same time as our tittilating trollops were making their mark in the late night syndication/Saturday morning UHF world TPIR was delivering its own triumvirate of tarts to the masturbatory masses every weekday at 11.

    The standard lineup at the time featured Janice Pennington, Holly Hallstrom and Dian Parkinson-the latter pair later garnering further attention when they sued their lecherous leader over unwanted sexual advances causing dogs and cats everywhere to wonder whether Bob was actually the one who should've been spayed or neutered-and much like Sunshine, Precious and Chris Adams' concomitant concubines these triplets, though flawed by today's ridiculous standards, seemed wildly attractive at a time before outpatient plastic surgery, botox and gravity-defying wardrobes became the rage.

    But perhaps the biggest coincidence between these cultural phenomena is how their overt sexual appeal was handled on a regular basis. Just like the early Girls of Grappling our Gameshow Gals spent most of their TV time looking pretty, but relatively chaste. For the valets it was a matter of standing ringside supporting their men in a variety of sequined tops and spandex bottoms culled straight from the Grand Ole Opry's Dottie West collection. While Janice/Holly/Dian ran their fingers around, but never on, an assortment of appliances, furniture ensembles and recreational vehicles clad in flowing dresses with shoulder pads big enough to frighten The Road Warriors.

    Then just when we seemed to lose interest the producers gave us something for the Kleenex box, so to speak, with a risque romp designed to tease and tantalize. Whether it be the clothes ripping roll in the ring, mud pit match and public spankings of the wrestling world or the always hoped for "Fun in the Sun", beach-themed showcase complete with swimsuits and bikinis on The Price Is Right they seemed to know just how often to tempt us so that the anticipation was almost as good as the act.

    But somewhere along the line they just gave up on the dance. Maybe it was the increasing ubiquity of men's magazines, the rise of the Internet or just plain laziness, but the powers that be decided "why bust our asses when we can just give you theirs" week in and week out. And next thing you know every episode of Raw/Smackdown/Nitro or opening game of PLINKO! began looking like Saturday night in The Bunny Mansion's Grotto.

1. Sunny (Tammy Lynn Sytch)- The moment, for me at least, that this whole thing jumped the proverbial shark was the day "Sunny Got Slopped".

Admittedly the sumptuous Ms. Sytch had been giving fans more of the goods than they were used to for some time with her low cut tops and skirts that made Daisy Dukes look like culottes. Then suddenly while managing the fitness-crazed Bodydonnas in their feud with the good ol' boy Godwinns Sunny got doused with the Godwinn's "slop bucket" turning a Sunday morning episode of WWE Superstars into a 15 minute, more angles than an NFL Replay Booth, nipple blaring wet t-shirt contest...and things would never be the same.

    Interestingly the woman behind this defining moment of standards lowering hails from Matawan, New Jersey just a handful of Parkway exits from Seaside Heights the site of another "dumbing down of America" darling The Jersey Shore. Yet at a time when Snooki and The Situation were still a 6-pack of Bartles & Jaymes and a romp in the back seat of a tricked-out Monte Carlo from conception young Tammy was hitting the books and not the "boards" graduating near the top of her High School class before matriculating to prestigious Wellesley College to major in pre-law.

    A year later with dreams of being a pediatrician she had switched to pre-med, thereby confirming Otter's claim in Animal House that it's really all the same, and transferred to the University of Tennessee to be closer to her HS sweetheart, Chris Candido, who was working for Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Under Cornette's imaginative booking SMW had become a proving ground for wild angles and new themes that would later turn up re-packaged in the WWF. When Candido's sexy, co-ed girlfriend showed up on summer break looking for work one of those themes became pushing the envelope of sexuality in wrestling and soon it was to Hell with Little Timmy's colic, slop bucket here I come.

    At this point with Ted Turner's cash infused WCW beating him on TV and Bret Hart's monster contract strangling him like he just stumbled headfirst into David Carradine's closet Vince McMahon was ready to pull out all stops to save his sinking ship. So when Sunny's youthful good looks and sexy energy started garnering attention the Boss took advantage naming her host of a number of syndicated packages and getting her featured on MTV's Singled Out and Entertainment Tonight. She also began dating Shawn Michaels who, after getting dumped, accused her of fooling around with the then married Bret Hart. This all played out as a sidelight to the infamous 1997 "Montreal Screwjob" where McMahon/Michaels stole the title from Hart on a phantom tap out. True to her friend Hart Sunny walked out briefly in protest and by 1998 she and Candido were, not surprisingly, plying their trade in ECW and WCW.

    There rumors swirled that Sytch was abusing drugs and was sometimes found passed out on locker room floors which presented a problem since that position was already occupied by Sandman and Scott Hall respectively in those promotions. Additionally, she had gained weight and the road had hardened her look. She took to wearing long fur coats to the ring in WCW which unless you plan on revealing a bikini underneath does not bode well for a female's prospects in this business.

    She claims to have turned down a six figure offer from Playboy in 1997 which in retrospect may have been a mistake. The new millenium found her working the New Jersey Independent circuit and posing nude for Missy Hyatt's website in pictures that I'm sure were not quite as tasteful or, at 36 years old, flattering as Hef would've produced.

    Throughout it all, though, she stuck with Candido until his untimely passing in 2005. Later that same year she appeared at ECW's "Hardcore Heaven" a tribute show for the growing number of fallen stars of ECW which by this point ranked ahead of coal mining, but behind altar boy on the list of the country's most dangerous jobs.

    A true breakthrough pioneer for women in the business Sunny got her just desserts recently when she was named an inductee in the 2011 class of the WWE Hall of Fame. So to this original Jersey Shore Girl we say congratulations on an honor well deserved.
Generally the last woman to not look ridiculous in leopard print was Ginger Grant, but for Sunny we'll make an exception.

2. Sable (Rena Mero)- It may be coincedental, but I've always viewed women with breast implants and Professional Wrestling in the same light. I know everything I'm seeing is not real, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it just the same.

    After all men like breasts or as Jerry Seinfeld once put it, "why would I be a leg man, I've already got legs." So let's quickly send a shout out to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for if it wasn't for these leaders of the Women's Suffrage movement we no doubt would've had a topless President by this point...and that erotically endowed Chief Executive may just have been Sable.

    Already a model for L-Oreal, Pepsi and Guess? Jeans-the latter a product that when it's label inevitably turns up on the backside of a plus-size woman in line at Wal-Mart takes all my self-control to not answer, "220?, 225?"-in 1993 Sable made the best cosmetic surgery choice since Matthew McConaughey's hair plugs (give up the charade guy, you had a comb-over in Dazed and Confused for crissakes) when she got implants to supposedly improve her self-esteem. In addition they attracted Marc Mero who at the time was doing a Little Richard impersonation as Johnny B. Badd in WCW.

    In true WCW fashion Rena stayed off camera until Mero jumped to the WWF. Knowing the Sunny run wouldn't last forever Vinny Mac started grooming Sable for the sexpot role and pretty soon Mero had become wrestling's version of Hank Baskett being dragged along by his wife's industrial strength bra straps.

    While Sable's popularity grew Mero dropped the Intercontinental Title to Triple H, worked a ludicrous boxing gimmick, lost a match to Toughman competitor Butterbean and jobbed for comic-relief grappler Gillberg with the Light Heavyweight Title on the line. That he was pinned by Sable at the Capital Carnage PPV after a "Crotch Shot" is not as surprising as the fact that at that point he even felt the blow at all.

    Meanwhile FIT magazine had featured Sable under the headline "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" and the April 1999 issue of Playboy with her on the cover became the single biggest seller of all time.

    Still even silicon has a shelf life. By 1999 Sable and the WWF were on bad terms that resulted in her dismissal and subsequent $110 million sexual harassment lawsuit which surprisingly actually pre-dated the arrival of Randy Orton. She returned briefly in the mid-2000's to feud with Stephanie McMahon and manage "A-Train" Albert Bloom who I believe is currently enshrined along with Goldberg and Scott "Raven" Levy in the Jewish Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame that resides in Barry Horowitz' basement.

    Nonetheless Rena Mero was nothing if not a woman of firsts: first to call herself "Diva", first to pose for Playboy, first to inspire Evening Gown, Bra and Pantie and Bikini matches/contests. In short a true trendsetter who changed the game forever.
Not real, still spectacular!

3. Debra- If nothing else Vince McMahon is one helluva a businessman. His battles in the '80's with ex-wrestlers turned promoters like Verne Gagne would've been comical if they weren't so one-sidedly sad. For while Vinnie Mac catered to a new generation of fan by wedding his brand to music, fireworks and family fun Verne and the old boys network was still trying to jam anachronistic, hairy chested heels like Ole Anderson and Nick Bockwinkel down our throats. So when Sunny and then Sable flew the coop in the late-90's it was little wonder a woman like the pulchritudinous Debra Marshall was there to pick up the slack. In business they call it a cash reserve, for Mr. McMahon it was more like a "gash reserve".

    Debra got into wrestling when her mother, who obviously never saw the film Blazing Saddles, gladly passed her number along to ex-Chicago Bear turned pro wrestler Steve "Mongo" McMichael. They worked in WCW from '96 to '97, but when "Mongo" predictably turned out to be a loose cannon Debra divorced him and moved onto the WWF.

    At the time the McMahons were beginning to stockpile blondes (Terri Runnels, Tori, Ryan Shamrock), but with a heaving chest, killer legs and the butt of a twelve year old boy (did I just type that out loud?) Debra quickly rose to the top of the pecking order. Even winning the woman's title because her dress got torn off in an Evening Gown match with Sable.

    Alas, she did not last long in the game, but her seamless transition in the wake of Sable's departure ensured that the folks who run the biz will make certain we will never be left wanting for the lowest common denominator again.

4. Wendi Richter- If only changing who you are in real life was as easy as it is in wrestling. In 1985 the true Texas ranch raised Ms. Richter chucked her trademark Cowboy hat, threw on a handful of glitter and enough eye makeup to make Alice Cooper look like an Ivory Girl and suddenly she was part of the Rock-n-Wrestling Connection (with Cyndi Lauper) and on her way to being the most popular women in the sport.

    In 1984 she ended the longest reign this side of Marshal Tito when she knocked off 28 year champion Fabulous Moolah on MTV's Brawl For It All special and soon she popped up in Lauper's "She Bop" video and was defending the title around the world.

   But the girls stopped having fun when Lauper quit the wrestling game and Richter began demanding more money. In the little remembered "Original WWF Screwjob" Richter dropped the title on a quick count at Madison Square Garden to The Spider Lady who turned out to be Moolah under the hood.

    There was nowhere to go, but down or as they called it in the wrestling world at the time the AWA. There she feuded with a young Madusa before quietly slipping out of the game in the '90s to work in real estate and compete on the Dog Show circuit. A nice run for a seemingly nice woman who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2010. Good job.

5. Lita (Amy Dumas)- A serial dater Ms. Dumas has gone through Matt Hardy, Edge and CM Punk on her way to breaking more wrestler's hearts than Stan "The Man" Stasiak. Her real contribution though is bringing attitude to the sometimes overly prissy women's division.

    A true "worker" who honed her craft on the challenging Luchadore circuit in Mexico. My favorite memory of Lita is a style-clueless Vince McMahon continually admonishing her to pull her pants up before she went to the ring-a fashion trend, by the way, that is single-handedly bringing back Ricketts as kids today are forced to walk perversely bow-legged just to keep from dropping their drawers completely.

6. Dump Matsumoto- When you name your daughter Dump you're pretty much limiting her future prospects. When she grows up to be a 5' 4", 220 pound raging ball of PMS it's safe to say the Cotillon Crowd is not likely to come calling.

    A mega-superstar in Japan, where her matches with Bull Nakano netted record breaking TV ratings, Matsumoto is included here as a woman who made the "Killer Female Heel" viable and opened the doors for "Healthy" girls everywhere to pursue their wrestling dreams.
Dump channeling her inner...Josef Mengele, I guess?!?

7. Bertha Faye- And 260 pound Bertha Faye is one of those women to fulfill that goal. Often taunted about her girth by WWF audiences Bertha once screamed in an interview that she wasn't fat, she was big-boned. To which WWF crowds responded much like the comedian Dom Irrera who replied to a woman using the same logic that, "from where I'm standing it looks like you got some pretty fat, f---ing bones in ur ass!"

8. Heidi Lee Morgan- On the other end of the spectrum is Ms. Morgan who's twig-like build could make Calista Flockhart look like Beth Phoenix. If you have trouble believing Rey Misterio can take down folks like The Big Show and Mark Henry then you'd find it hard to fathom that Ms. Morgan could drop anyone larger than an Olsen Twin. Still she did in a career which saw her win the LPWA Tag Titles with Misty Blue Simmes and twice challenge Alundra Blaze (Madusa) for the WWF Women's Championship. In addition we are happy to report that no evidence turned up that Heidi Lee ever suffered from any ailment on the Eating Disorder scale unlike yours truly who has been diagnosed as Amnesic Bulimic; or, in other words, I binge, but forget to purge.

9. Woman- I know I promised this tragic superstar, but it's basically impossible to crack wise considering her unfortunate end. To learn more about her brilliant, but star-crossed career you can start here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Benoit

Hopefully we'll be back soon with some more old-school wrestling stuff plus a helping of baseball banality. Until then check out our page on Facebook or under the screen name "sprtcom102" at Twitter because apparently we we're a 14 year old girl in another life.

Just A Rat Tail Away From The Trailer Park

    ...so I'm shaving this morning and I leave that little bastard spot below my nose for last when my girlfriend comes in and says in an accusatory tone, "you're not gonna leave that are you?" So now I'm sporting a Hitler moustache...that should teach her.

Seriously, though, I'm kidding...I don't have a girlfriend.

But I do have an obligation to my loyal fan(s?) so just a brief update to inform you that we'll have Part 4 of our Seminal Sluts series up on Thursday. Be back then.