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Izzy Slapawitz
Jeff Smith (December 14, 1948 – December 28, 2019), better known as Izzy Slapawitz, was an American professional wrestler, manager and color commentator, best known for his time with International Championship Wrestling. From 1978 to 1982, Smith led the Slapowitz Syndicate in the NWA's Mid-South and Knoxville territories as well as many "outlaw" promotions in the Southern United States. He also had brief stints in Georgia Championship Wrestling, Jim Crockett Promotions, Maple Leaf Wrestling, and the World Wrestling Federation. At various times his stable included Barry O, Bob Orton, Jr., Boris Malenko, Crusher Broomfield, James "Sugar Bear" Harris, The Mongolian Stomper, Randy Savage, Ray Candy, Rip Rogers and The Devil's Duo (Doug Vines and Jeff Sword). Early life Smith was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He became a wrestling fan in the late 1950s. A childhood friend claimed that they were the first wrestling fans to bring signs to local World Wide Wrestling Fed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behind New York County (Manhattan). Brooklyn is also New York City's most populous borough,2010 Gazetteer for New York State . Retrieved September 18, 2016. with 2,736,074 residents in 2020. Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, Brooklyn is located on the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One Man Gang
George Gray (born February 12, 1960) is an American retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, (The) One Man Gang. For two years in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), he was Akeem "The African Dream". Prior to this, he was the top heel for Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF), and UWF Heavyweight Champion for six months in 1986 and 1987. Early life Gray was born in Chicago, but moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina when he was 5. Professional wrestling career Early career (1977–1982) Grey trained with longtime local independent wrestler and promoter Chief Jay Eagle (Jerry Bragg) and Darren "Rattlesnake" Westbrooks. He started his career at the age of 17 on the Carolina independent circuit wrestling both under his real name and as "Crusher Gray." He then moved on to wrestle in the Kentucky/Tennessee area, including for International Championship Wrestling (ICW), under the ring name Crusher Broomfield. Gray went in as part of a package along with B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gorilla Monsoon
Robert James Marella (June 4, 1937 – October 6, 1999), better known by his ring name of Gorilla Monsoon, was an American professional wrestler, play-by-play commentator, and booker. Monsoon is famous for his run as a villainous super-heavyweight main eventer, and later as the voice of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), as commentator and backstage manager during the 1980s and 1990s. He also portrayed the on-screen role of WWF President from 1995 to 1997. In professional wrestling, the staging area just behind the entrance curtain at an event, a position which Marella established and where he could often be found during WWF shows late in his career, is named the "Gorilla Position" in his honor. Early life Marella attended Jefferson High School in Rochester, New York, becoming a standout athlete in football, amateur wrestling, and track and field. At the time, he weighed over 301 pounds (136.53 kg) and was affectionately called "Tiny" by his teammates. Marella wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babyface (professional Wrestling)
In professional wrestling, a face (babyface) is a heroic, "good guy" or "fan favorite" wrestler, booked (scripted) by the promotion with the aim of being cheered by fans, and acts as a protagonist to the heels, who are the villainous antagonist or "bad guy" characters. Traditionally, they wrestle within the rules and avoid cheating (in contrast to the villains who use illegal moves and call in additional wrestlers to do their work for them) while behaving positively towards the referee and the audience. Such characters are also referred to as blue-eyes in British wrestling and ''técnicos'' in ''lucha libre''. The face character is portrayed as a hero relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains. Not everything a face wrestler does must be heroic: faces need only to be clapped or cheered by the audience to be effective characters. When the magazine ''Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' went into circulation in the late 1970s, the magazine referred to face wrestlers as " ... [...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] |
Sunnyside Gardens
Sunnyside Gardens is a community within Sunnyside, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. The area was the first development in the United States patterned after the ideas of the garden city movement initiated in England in the first decades of the twentieth century by Ebenezer Howard and Raymond Unwin, specifically Hampstead Garden Suburb and Letchworth Garden City. Covering between Queens Boulevard and Sunnyside Yard, Sunnyside Gardens was constructed between 1924 and 1928 by the City Housing Corporation, founded by developer Alexander Bing, and architects Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. The project grew out of discussions in the early 1920s about housing and planning; Lewis Mumford was a leading participant. It is among the first planned communities in the U.S. Sunnyside Gardens is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has also designated it as an official city landmar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kevin Sullivan (wrestler)
Kevin Francis Sullivan (born October 26, 1949) is an American professional wrestler and booker, perhaps best known for his role in World Championship Wrestling. Professional wrestling career Early career (1970–1982) Sullivan had been an amateur wrestler in the Boston area, and was not trained professionally. His first professional match was in Montreal, beating Fernand Frechette. Sullivan wrestled as "Johnny West" in the National Wrestling Alliance's Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling in the early 1970s, capturing the NWA Gulf Coast Tag Team Championship with Ken Lucas, defeating Jack Morrell and Eddie Sullivan on March 11, 1971. Next, he went to Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF) in 1972 and captured the NWA Florida Tag Team Championship with Mike Graham. He then went north to join the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) as a mid-card face from 1974 to 1977. He had a (rare for the time) face versus face battle with Pete Sanchez on a Madison Square Garden underc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freddie Blassie
Frederick Kenneth Blassman (February 8, 1918 – June 2, 2003) was an American professional wrestler and manager, known by the ring name "Classy" Freddie Blassie. Renowned as "The Hollywood Fashion Plate","Classy" Freddie Blassie with Keith Elliot Greenberg, ''Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks'', (WWE Books, 2003). he was a one-time NWA World Junior Heavyweight Champion, and was inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame in 1994. He is regarded as one of the greatest wrestling heels, or villains, of all time. Early life Blassie was born Frederick Kenneth Blassman in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1918. His parents, Anna (née Sind) and Jacob Blassman, were German immigrants who arrived in the United States prior to World War I. Frederick was an only child, which he claimed was because he weighed 15 pounds when he was born and his mother didn't want to go through childbirth again. His father was abusive and an alcoholic, and Frederick often had to take refuge with his grandparents whenever Jacob w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fan Club
A fans club is an organized group of fans, generally of a celebrity. Most fans clubs are run by fans who devote considerable time and resources to support them. There are also "official" fan clubs that are run by someone associated with the person or organization the club is centered on. This is the case for many musicians, sports teams, etc. People in a fans club usually have either a T-shirt or a pin to indicate which fans club they are a part of. All fans clubs have unique paraphernalia that are given or sold to fans to use as an indication. Barbz, who support Nicki Minaj, Hollanders, who support Tom Holland, Carats, who support Seventeen, and A.R.M.Y who support BTS are examples of a fans club. Etymology The origin of the term fan in reference to a dedicated zealot is unclear. The word may have emerged in the 1800s, when boxing supporters were said to take a “fancy” to pugilistic sports. Among modern sports fans, however, the title is considered a shortened version o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Wide Wrestling Federation
Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd. was an American sports promotion company. It was run by Vincent J. McMahon from 1953 to 1982. Operating as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC), the company was originally a professional wrestling and boxing promotion and later became the sanctioning body for the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The Capitol Wrestling Corporation is the precursor to today's WWE, as of 2022 run by McMahon's granddaughter, Stephanie McMahon. History Early history (1953–1963) Jess McMahon was a successful boxing promoter who began working with Tex Rickard in 1926. With the help of Rickard, he began promoting boxing at the third Madison Square Garden. A few years prior, professional wrestler Toots Mondt had created a new challenge of professional wrestling that he called “Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling”. He convinced wrestler Ed Lewis and his manager Billy Sandow to implement this new solution and wrestle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rip Rogers
Mark Sciarra (born February 7, 1954) is an American retired professional wrestler, better known by his ring name, Rip Rogers. Early life Sciarra was born in Seymour, Indiana on February 7, 1954. He graduated from Seymour High School in 1972 and went on to attend Indiana Central College, graduating in 1976. Sicarra worked as a teacher for a year before deciding to become a professional wrestler. Professional wrestling career Rip Rogers started wrestling in 1975. He formed the "Convertible Blondes" with Pez Whatley and Gary Royal in Angelo Poffo's International Championship Wrestling (ICW) and won the Tag Team Titles with Royal. As with The Fabulous Freebirds defending regional NWA tag team championships with any two of the three members, the Convertible Blondes also used the so-called "Freebird Rule" to defend the ICW Tag Team Championship in this manner. He left the ICW following a dispute with Angelo Poffo's son Randy Poffo, better known by his ring name Randy Savage. In 1979 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ray Candy
Ray Canty (December 3, 1951 – May 23, 1994), better known by the ring name Ray Candy, was an American professional wrestler who worked for a variety of different wrestling promotions in the United States, Japan and Puerto Rico such as Jim Crockett Promotions, All Japan Pro Wrestling, World Wrestling Council and others. He also competed as Blackstud Williams, Super Mario Man, Commando Ray, Masked Superfly and Kareem Muhammad. As Kareem Muhammad he formed a tag team with Elijah Akeem as the tag team "The Zambuie Express". He also spent time as part of Skandor Akbar's Devastation Inc. group as well as a team known as "The Shock Troops" with Ed Gantner and "The Commandos" with Commando Boone. Canty was responsible for training New Jack for his professional wrestling career. Professional wrestling career Ray Canty was trained for his professional wrestling career by former NWA World Heavyweight Championship holder Dory Funk Jr. before making his in-ring debut in 1973. Starting out h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
