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Gilberto Melendez
Gilberto Meléndez (December 2, 1933 – June 15, 2016) was a Puerto Rican professional wrestler better known under the ring name Gypsy Joe. While attaining much of his United States success in the Tennessee area, Meléndez also gained a following in Japan. His career lasted six decades, and his highly physical brawling style and tough reputation made him an early pioneer of the hardcore wrestling scene.LaFave, JefWrestling legend Gypsy Joe now battling for life: Medical bills benefit show Saturday in Rossville''Times Free Press'' (August 9, 2013). Retrieved on 3-15-2014. Professional wrestling career Early career Meléndez began his wrestling career in 1951 at age 18. During a lengthy tenure in his native Puerto Rico, he went under various monikers and learned the ropes with the likes of Pedro Morales and Carlos Colón Sr. Meléndez made his United States debut at Sunnyside Garden in Long Island, New York in 1963. Primarily using the name Gypsy Joe by this point, he mainly work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orocovis, Puerto Rico
Orocovis (from Taino language, Orocobix popularly thought to mean "''remembrance of the first mountain''") is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico located in the Central Mountain Range, north of Villalba and Coamo; south of Morovis and Corozal; southeast of Ciales; east of Jayuya; and west of Barranquitas. Orocovis is spread over 17 barrios and Orocovis Pueblo (the downtown area and the administrative center of the city). It is part of the San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Since before the Spanish colonization in the 16th century, the Taíno were already established in the region. They were led by the cacique Orocobix and his tribe known as the Jatibonicu. After Spaniards settled in the island, the region was part of the south of Manatí and the north region of Coamo. By 1823 Orocovis was a barrio of Barranquitas while Morovis (previously part of Manatí) had a barrio called Barros. Both Orocovis and Barros were eventually united to esta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heel (professional Wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a heel (also known as a ''rudo'' in '' lucha libre'') is a wrestler who portrays a villain, "bad guy", or "rulebreaker", and acts as an antagonist to the faces, who are the heroic protagonist or "good guy" characters. Not everything a heel wrestler does must be villainous: heels need only to be booed or jeered by the audience to be effective characters, although most truly successful heels embrace other aspects of their devious personalities, such as cheating to win or using foreign objects. "The role of a heel is to get 'heat,' which means spurring the crowd to obstreperous hatred, and generally involves cheating and pretty much any other manner of socially unacceptable behavior that will get the job done." To gain heat (with boos and jeers from the audience), heels are often portrayed as behaving in an immoral manner by breaking rules or otherwise taking advantage of their opponents outside the bounds of the standards of the match. Others do not (or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abdullah The Butcher
Lawrence Robert Shreve (born January 11, 1941), better known by the ring name Abdullah the Butcher, is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. He has a reputation for being involved in some of the most violent and bloody hardcore wrestling matches of all time. Over his time in wrestling he was given the moniker of "Madman from Sudan". One of Shreve's trademarks is a series of divot-like scars on his head that he has due to excessive use of blading during his career. The scars are so deep that, according to Mick Foley, Shreve is able to put gambling chips into them. An amateur martial artist, Shreve also has knowledge of judo and karate, often including this knowledge in his wrestling matches through throws and chops. Early life Shreve was born on January 11, 1941 and raised in Windsor, Ontario, as part of a family of ten people in a deeply impoverished household. He learned karate and judo as a youth and, teaching fellow children in the backyard, claims to have eventually earn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ed Farhat
Edward George Farhat (June 7, 1926 – January 18, 2003) was an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name The Sheik (often called The Original Sheik to distinguish him from The Iron Sheik, who debuted in 1972). Farhat is credited as one of the originators of the hardcore wrestling style. He was also the promoter of Big Time Wrestling, and the uncle of ECW wrestler Sabu. Farhat promoted his shows at Cobo Hall in Detroit and was the booker for Frank Tunney's shows at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto from 1971 to 1977. Early life Edward George Farhat was born one of ten children in Lansing, Michigan, on June 7, 1926, to Lebanese immigrants. Unlike most of his older brothers, he did not attend college as myth says. His older brother Edmund did, which is where the confusion usually takes place. Edward quit school in the eighth grade and worked during the depression. He falsified his birth certificate in order to join the Army (possibly using his older brother Edmu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All Japan Pro Wrestling
(AJPW/AJP) or simply All Japan is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion established on October 21, 1972 when Giant Baba split away from the Japanese Wrestling Association and created his own promotion. Many wrestlers had left with Baba, with many more joining the following year when JWA folded. From the mid-1970s, All Japan was firmly established as the largest promotion in Japan. As the 1990s began, aging stars gave way to a younger generation including Mitsuharu Misawa, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, Kenta Kobashi, Gary Albright, Toshiaki Kawada, Mike Barton (Bart Gunn), Akira Taue and Jun Akiyama, leading to perhaps AJPW's most profitable period in the 1990s. In 1999, Giant Baba died and the promotion was run by Motoko Baba. Misawa was named President but left in 2000 after disagreements with Motoko. Misawa created Pro Wrestling NOAH and every single native wrestler besides Masanobu Fuchi and Toshiaki Kawada left All Japan. This led to a loss of All Japan's TV deal and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Championship Wrestling
World Championship Wrestling, Inc. (WCW) was an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Ted Turner in 1988, after Turner Broadcasting System, through a subsidiary named Universal Wrestling Corporation, purchased the assets of National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) territory Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) (which had aired its programming on TBS). For much of its existence, WCW was one of the top professional wrestling promotions in the United States alongside the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)), at one point surpassing the latter in terms of popularity. After initial success through utilization of established wrestling stars of the 1980s, the company appointed Eric Bischoff to executive producer of television in 1993. Under Bischoff's leadership, the company enjoyed a period of mainstream success characterized by a shift to reality-based storylines, and notable hirings of former WWF talent. WCW also gained attention for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1980s Professional Wrestling Boom
The 1980s professional wrestling boom (more commonly referred to as the Golden Era and the Rock 'n' Wrestling Era) was a surge in the popularity of professional wrestling in the United States and elsewhere throughout the 1980s. The expansion of cable television and pay-per-view, coupled with the efforts of promoters such as Vince McMahon, saw professional wrestling shift from a system controlled by numerous regional companies to one dominated by two nationwide companies: McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The decade also saw a considerable decline in the power of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), a cartel which had until then dominated the wrestling landscape, and in the efforts to sustain belief in the kayfabe of wrestling. History In the early 1980s, professional wrestling in the U.S. consisted mainly of three competing organizations: the promotions the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the Northe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stampede Wrestling
Stampede Wrestling was a Canadian professional wrestling promotion based in Calgary, Alberta. For nearly 50 years, it was one of the main promotions in western Canada and the Canadian Prairies. Originally established by Stu Hart in 1948, the promotion competed with other promotions such as NWA All-Star Wrestling and Pacific Northwest Wrestling and regularly ran events in Calgary's Victoria Pavilion, Ogden Auditorium and the Stampede Corral between 1948 and 1984. Bought out by promoter Vince McMahon, the company was briefly run by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) before being sold back to the Hart family the following year. Run by Bruce Hart until January 1990, he and Ross Hart reopened the promotion in 1999 and began running events in the Alberta area. Along with its wrestling school known as " The Dungeon", many of the promotion's former alumni becoming some of the most popular stars in the World Wrestling Federation and other American promotions during the 1980s and 1990s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WDEF-TV
WDEF-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with CBS. Owned by Morris Multimedia, the station maintains studios on Broad Street in Chattanooga and a transmitter in nearby Signal Mountain. Although parts of the Chattanooga market are in the Central Time Zone, all schedules are listed in Eastern Time. History The station signed on the air on April 25, 1954, carrying programming from all four networks, though it has always been a primary CBS affiliate. It took the CBS affiliation from WROM-TV (channel 9, now WTVC). It lost NBC to WRGP-TV (now WRCB-TV) in 1956, and lost ABC to WTVC (the former WROM) in 1958. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. Roy H. Park bought WDEF-TV, as well as WDEF radio (1370 AM, now WXCT) in 1963. His media interests eventually became known as Park Communications, which was bought by Media General in 1997. In 2006, Media General sold the station to M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soldiers And Sailors Memorial Auditorium
The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium is a historic performance hall in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Built between 1922 and 1924 by John Parks (John Parks Company, General Contractors) at a cost of $700,000 and designed by noted architect R. H. Hunt, who also designed Chattanooga's lavish Tivoli Theatre, the theater honors area veterans of World War I. The building, located at 399 McCallie Avenue is about halfway between downtown and the UT Chattanooga campus. It occupies half of the city block bounded by McCallie Avenue, Lindsay Street, Oak Street and Georgia Avenue. The building contains two theaters; the lower one seats 3,866 and the upper one seats 1,012. There is also a small trade show convention hall in the basement that measures . By the early 1960s, Memorial Auditorium had fallen into disrepair. The building was closed in 1965, and reopened after renovations the following year. It closed again in 1988 for further restoration and modernization. The repairs cost o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee's fourth-largest city and one of the two principal cities of East Tennessee, along with Knoxville. It anchors the Chattanooga metropolitan area, Tennessee's fourth-largest metropolitan statistical area, as well as a larger three-state area that includes Southeast Tennessee, Northwest Georgia, and Northeast Alabama. Chattanooga was a crucial city during the American Civil War, due to the multiple railroads that converge there. After the war, the railroads allowed for the city to grow into one of the Southeastern United States' largest heavy industrial hubs. Today, major industry that drives the economy includes automotive, advanced manufacturing, food and beverage production, healthcare, insurance, tourism, and back office ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tag Team
Tag team wrestling is a type of professional wrestling in which matches are contested between teams of multiple wrestlers. Tag teams may be made up of wrestlers who normally wrestle in singles competition, but more commonly are made of established teams who wrestle regularly as a unit and have a team name and identity. In most team matches, only one competitor per team is allowed in the ring at a time. This status as the active or legal wrestler may be transferred by physical contact, most commonly a palm-to-palm tag which resembles a high five. The team-based match has been a mainstay of professional wrestling since the mid-twentieth century, and most promotions have sanctioned a championship division for tag teams. History The first "World" tag team championship was promoted in San Francisco in the early 1950s. Tag matches with three-man teams were developed, and in some territories, a championship division was instituted for these teams, but the concept failed to become wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
