Very sad about Hall. Dude survived so much with his drug/alcohol issues to have complications from surgery get him. That sucks.

Nice post by Nash.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

See this all the time, people that abused themselves with drugs have done so much damage to their heart and circulatory system that any surgery is high risk. You add in the fact that Hall likely was injecting himself with 20 to 100 times prescribed levels of testosterone with regularity for years must have clogged his coronary arteries to the point of nearly full occlusion.

Gotta be at the top of the list of best wrestlers to never be world champ

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I know ESPN has been covering wrestling for a long time, but it's still weird to me when they run a story on the death of a HoF wrestler pretty much the same way they'd run a story on the death of a HoF baseball player.

https://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/335 ... ll-dies-63

Definitely on that list....

Jake the Snake...Ted Dibiase....Roddy Piper.....who else?

Bruiser Brody
Kevin Von Erich
Owen Hart

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Yeah all good ones. Owen and Kevin definitely shoulda gotta run at some point. I am sure we are missing some guys.

Looking back I am surprised Razor didnt get a run with the belt back in the 90s. He would have been great with someone like HBK chasing him. Missed opportunities.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

When Hall was with the AWA, I used to see him driving the WrestleRock Truck around the area where I lived. I think Sheri Martell and Buddy Rose lived in some of those same apartment complexes. I also flew back from Fargo on a flight with Hall, Raven and Lex Lugar.

Tough way for him to go out. He lived life to the fullest. RIP.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

To be honest, I had a few typed out, and deleted them when I remembered they had a run of some sort (Sgt Slaughter, Kevin Nash).

Considering I don't think much of the AWA after Hogan leaves, I'd probably put Curt Henning on the list. Dr Death Steve Williams. Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Butch Reed. Gino Hernandez. Using the same criteria...Jerry Lawler (no one cares about Memphis except Jim Cornette).

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Curt was AWA champ for a time. But he definitely would be on the list for his time in WWF. An absolute stud that could do everything.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

If a tree fell in the woods, and no one was around to see it, did it really hold a belt (again...don't like giving credit to the AWA...)

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Paul Orndorff
Rick Rude

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

Rude is definitely on the list.

My memory may just be bad, but I dont recall ever being that impressed with Orndorff.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

He was solid but never spectacular I guess. He was pretty much cooked after they gave him the swerve push with Hogan back in the day.

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I was always a Mad Dog Buzz Sawyer guy but they never gave him anything more than a Mid Card push back in the day. Rick Steiner would have to be on any list as far as I'm concerned but he is mostly remembered for his tag team work. He was a helluva singles wrestler whenever they gave him the chance.

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Ran across Scott Halls 2 part interview on Stone Colds podcast. Listened to it again. Such good stuff.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Yes they are. His interviews with Nash were good too.

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

AWA was one of the main territories back in the day, and while Verne was certainly old school, he did help develop many of the top stars. Guys would get invaluable training by moving from territory to territory, it was a far superior method of developing pro wrestlers than what we see today where the guys just go from high spot to high spot with little or no continuity or thought, and no emphasis on character development or story telling.

That's why matches between Punk and MJF look and feel so much different than the crap ass matches between Luke Perry's kid, the odd dude that dresses up like a dinosaur, and the petite Jackson brothers.

I love when Cornette calls them the "Trampoline Cowboys".

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My issue with the AWA was that by the time I was watching it in the 80's (thanks ESPN), the product was just not good. A lot of that had to do with Verne's desire for his mediocre son to be a champion. Vern, much like Fritz Von Erich, let the times pass them by. Bill Watts tried to go too big too soon. Vince killed the Crockett territory.

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AWA wasn't bad in the early 80's to mid 80's. By the late 80's they were pretty much done however. I still much preferred it to whatever WWF was doing up until the late 80's early 90's.

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Wait, the link has solid wrestling thoughts...that certainly proves guys posting here have way more in common than we think.

Was only a hapless youth at the time, but me and my Junior High buddies all thought Greg Gagne looked more like our sixth grade English teacher than an actual pro wrestler. We were all pretty apathetic about the High Flyers (Gagne/Brunzell), even though Verne pushed them incessantly on AWA TV. I now realize the early 80's AWA heel roster, which was full of legendary guys like Heenan and Ventura, both of whom would go on to much bigger things later, was the real reason people paid attention.

That may be part of it...I didn't discover the AWA until probably 87 at the earliest, and it was...ehhh...rough.

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Yeah early 80s AWA was really good. But it fell off quickly as people left for the WWF.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

One of the most entertaining matches I ever saw was Bobby "The Brain" Heenan vs. Greg Gagne in a Weasel Suit match at Boylan Catholic High School in Rockford back in the early 80's.

The crowd was popping with "Weasel" chants from the time Bobby hit the ring and everyone went home smiling after watching Heenan stagger around the ring in the Weasel suit after succumbing to the "Gagne Sleeper", making Greg Gagne look good was quite an accomplishment, the dude looked terrible physically and really only had a crappy dropkick and of course the Gagne Sleeper in his repertoire, but Heenan was a master at his craft.

yeah heenan was a master of those kind of things. Most people only know Heenan from his run in the WWE and WCW, but his earlier days with the AWA were great.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Oh yeah you caught the ass end of it. AWA in the early 80's was the primary reason that I became a fan of wrestling in the first place. It was good to great back then. To me the best of Hogan and the Road Warriors among many others, occurred in the AWA. I agree that Greg Gagne was garbage as hell and only pushed because his dad was running the joint but I never remember him rising to the level of World Champion as a singles wrestler. Tag Team yeah but never single.

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Yeah I was a huge Wrestling Fan back in the day Clawmaster. Not so much now as it became tough for me to stomach all the garbage that WWE trots out on a regular.

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It would be fair to say that Hogan leaving was the death blow, then?

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