----The cover to the right and the story are from the February 1990 issue of Rasslin Riot – “The
Wrestling Bulletin for Mature Readers Only”. The cover as you can see was to show how much I loved Hulk Hogan. LOL I went on to make some t-shirts with that logo on it. I sold like 15 shirts and I have been told that Ric Flair signed one and it is framed in a friend’s house in Chicago. The first time I met Mick Foley he said, “You are the guy that made the Hulk and Warrior shirts; right??” Crazy that I only had about 300 subscribers at the time and Foley remembered those shirts.RINGSIDE WITH BIG DADDY BRIAN
The 2/24/90 Memphis show was a real classic. I expected a good crowd, but about 1000 people packed the arena. Real good card as you will see. Thanks to all for their comments about this new feature. It seems that everyone enjoyed, so let’s go ringside with Big Daddy.....
CWA 2/24/90 AMERICAN LEGION BUILDING Jonesboro, AR
ATT: 1000+
Dutch Mantell over “Rockin” Randy in a [*1/2] bout. Dutch won with a short arm closeline. Not a terrible match, but short. Randy is still green. Dutch looked good.
USWA TT Title Match: Southern Rockers – Rex King & Steve Doll lost by DQ over Robert Fuller & DBW when Brian Lee jumped Fuller. Lee turned on the 2/24 TV show and was suppose to be Fuller’s partner. Crowd really popped for Lee. [**3/4] bout with everyone working hard. DWG was at ringside in a skin tight split on both sides dress! OH ME!!! Some guy in the crowd yelled “chrome dome” at DWB. I was offended.
King Cobra won by DQ over Soultaker, when Soul threw him over the top rope. [*1/2] bout. Real short. I ask Cobra, “who you working tonight?’ at the photo table before the bout. It took him about 30 seconds to respond, “Soultaker.” He looked drunk. Soul gets a lot of cheers. They need to turn him into a big killer face. He gave Cobra a real hard “Flair” chop during the match. I think Corbra was asleep.
Dirty White Boy beat Dutch Mantell using the ropes in a real good [***] bout. Both guys worked real hard. At one point Dutch waved at DWG and she smiled. DWB started then yelling at her. DWG gets a lot of cheers. I think the fans feel sorry for her. Dutch got the mic and said, “White Girl, why don’t you just tell him to kiss your ass.” It got a lot of cheers. Mantell was booed when came out as he was subbing for Chris Champion, because everyone likes Chris.
INTERMISSION: Kerry Von Erich was selling photos taken with him in the ring for $5. I sat in my chair for a minute, then decided to go up and get a Polaroid taken with Kerry. He was once NWA World Champ and you know there is only one tower of pizza. I went up and ask him to put a headlock on me. I then preceded to atomic drop him. I grabbed his foot – to my surprise his foot came off?!?! I then piledrived the foot and pinned it for 1-2-3. Just think Kerry’s foot did a job for Big Daddy!! [BT: As most of you know the above story is just a figment of my sick twisted imagination. I just wanted to make sure everyone was reading and I’m just a big fan of HOT NEWS in the TORCH.]
MAIN EVENT: Unified World Title Match: Jerry “The King” Lawler vs Kerry “Foot” Von Erich ended when Lawler went to hit Kerry in the groin [in the corner], instead hit ref Jerry Calhoun. Lawler was DQ’ed & Kerry won. Kerry, after Calhoun went down from the nut shot had Lawler pinned, but Lawler was never counted. Great heat and some good work in this [***1/2] bout.
NOTES
At one point of the show half the lights in the building went out. They more went real dim. I thought we were going to have a power failure, which would lead to fire jumping from the light bulbs. I guess my paranoid Richard Lewis personality took over for a minute or two…King Kong Bundy with hair was sitting in front of me. Everyone gets a hair piece these days!! Wimps!!...When Kerry got the claw on Lawler, the fans went nuts!! A lot of heat for in that match…Lawler is still cheered by most people. They get into his heel comedy persona more they did his babyface role. He got more cheers on this card than he did all last summer when he was a babyface…ARENA RAT SCOREBOARD: (6). 2 (6) 14 year olds, 2 (7) with Rex King & Steve Doll, (2) for Kerry’s rat and a (11) for Lawler’s rat. This averages out to about (6). I think I have a (1) to (10) scale, but (11) is more like it for Lawler’s rat. OH ME!! One fine tenderoni!!
----“Big Daddy” Brian was just one of my personas in the zine. I was doing 90% of the zine, so I just used different personas to list results, reports and stuff. Soultaker would later become Papa Shango aka The Godfather. And yes, the girl I refer to as “Lawler’s rat” was Stacy Carter. The intermission thing was done similar to the “Lighter Side of Riot” that I do now.
