I’ve always been a pretty “inside” wrestling fan. One of my early memories is my dad telling me that Hulk Hogan would beat Andre The Giant at Wrestlemania III because he heard that someone bet big money on Hogan. I’d pretty much always known that it was fake. That’s what happens when you have a dad who grew up watching Pepper Gomez and Ray Stevens. He schooled me early on.
Back in 1991, I was decently “in the know” because of a radio show out of LA (I think) hosted by a man named Dynamite D. He wrestled at a place called “Slammers”, which I think was a gym that trained people and also hosted some matches. I don’t remember too much about it, but do remember that the show didn’t broadcast on a radio station that my area would pick up. I was able to pick it up on my television via a cable channel. We had a channel that scrolled a bunch of information, but the background was blue. That’s the channel I would pick up the show on. I think I was able to listen to this show for at least 6 months. Even when I was on vacation, I taped the show and listened back when I got back. I didn’t actually stare at the blue screen. I did other things like read magazines or whatever, but I don’t think I missed a show.
I have to think that Dynamite D was probably a Wrestling Observer subscriber, or a subscriber to another dirt sheet because around the same time, I was able to read Dave Meltzer’s column in the all sports Newspaper, The National. It had much of the same news in it.
That’s who I was as a wrestling fan in 1991. It was around this time that one of my favorite matches ever took place. Sting and Lex Luger vs. The Steiner Brothers at SuperBrawl ’91 was one of the hardest hitting matches I’d ever seen. I had seen the Japan/WCW Supershow some time before that, and I was able to see some hard hitting action there. But here you had four of WCW’s biggest stars in the ring all at the same time and for 10 minutes, they delivered. I remember they played a video package that showed the four guys with this sad music that made the match feel like it was four of the best friends of all time having a match together. It was so lovely.
Forgive Dusty Rhodes’ screw job finish, but at least it lead to something, though that something was the disappointing Sting vs. Nikita Koloff feud. It’s here in two parts.
