#Haystacks Calhoun

[magicwingslisten]

One of the late Andre The Giant’s favorite stories was about the time he and Haystacks went to a diner.

“There was a place next to the arena which was one of those all-you-can-eat-for-two-dollars joints,” Andre said in a 1973 interview. “When Haystacks and I walked in you could see the waitress almost faint. About 30 seconds later the manager comes out, takes a peek at us, and shakes his head and goes back to the kitchen.

“Haystacks and I decided to tie on a real big feed that night and the waitresses were hysterical. They told us the manager was tearing his hair out and practically in tears. But we felt badly, since we must’ve eaten about $25 worth of food for $4. So after it was over we told him we’d pay  the regular price instead of the all-you-can-eat price. He thanked us for that and told us two more like us could put him out of business.”

_ post and courier

Haystack Calhoun

“Rasslin’ was a job and a good job,” Calhoun once said in an interview. “I don’t like nobody saying anything bad about rasslin.’ It took care of me for a long, long time.”

[ringthedamnbell]

Wrestling With Sin: 477

Wrestling With Sin: 477 featuring Hulk Hogan, Terry Funk, Haystacks Calhoun and much more....

Brian Damage This is the 477th installment of the ‘Wrestling with Sin‘ series. A group of stories that delves into the darker, underbelly of pro wrestling. Many of the stories involves such subjects as sex, drugs, greed and in some cases even murder! As with every single story in the Sin series…I do not condone or condemn the alleged participants. We simply retell their stories by researching…

[mostbelovednjpwtournament]

Most Beloved WWE Wrestler Tournament

[magicwingslisten]

back in the day, we called him Haystack Calhoun

TOLEDO BLADE, May 3, 1970

[wrestlingisfake]

The Myth of the Casual Fans

I've seen the argument that WWE needed to switch from Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes to Roman vs. The Rock, because the latter match is more appealing to "casual fans." I don't buy it.

First of all, who the hell are "casual fans"? Pro wrestling pundits always bring them up like right-wing US politicians talking about "real America." "Casual fans" don't read dirtsheets. "Casual fans" don't argue about wrestling minutiae on social media. ""Casual fans" haven't paid much attention since the Attitude Era. You can extend this line of reasoning ad absurdum until "casual fans" can't name any wrestlers except for Andre the Giant and Haystacks Calhoun. At some point you're just describing ex-fans, or dead fans.

Second, the goal of a pro wrestling promotion is not simply to expand the fan base, and appeal to the widest possible audience. The goal of a pro wrestling promotion is to draw money. You accomplish that goal by getting people hooked on your product. Drug dealers don't chase the "casual drug users" who can quit any time they want. Shitty mobile games don't target the "casual gamers" who won't spend thousands of dollars on upgrades. Casuals are only profitable insofar as you can convert some of them into addicts, or whales.

Now, WWE has spent the past two years using Cody's return to attract new fans (and maybe lure back some lapsed fans) to turn them into diehards who spend money on tickets and Cody shirts and goofy neck tattoos. This is good for business! They nearly lost those fans by beating Cody at Mania 39, but this "Finish the Story" slogan convinced them to stick with it. Rug-pulling those fans again is going to cost WWE money. This is bad for business.

The fantasy is that cutting Cody off at the knees, to make way for The Rock, will draw so many casual fans that it will totally offset the disgruntled Cody diehards. But how do you retain some of those casuals, and get them to spend money year-round? Rock is a 52-year-old movie star and can't wrestle every week, or even be on the show every month. So this new wave of casuals will need some other big star to latch onto whenever Dwayne's not around. Your choices are to spend years making a new guy, or rehab the guys you have, like Cody. Which means it's stupid to fuck over Cody in the first place!

[johnschneiderblog]

Sheik chic

Among the authors I met Saturday at the Library of Michigan’s notable-books celebration was Brian Solomon, author of “Blood Fire and the Unbelievable Real-Life Story of Wrestling’s Original Sheik.”

I could relate. As a youthful fan of Big Time Wrestling - a TV show my buds and I never missed - I had a love-hate relationship with The Sheik. In other words I loved to hate him. He was the ultimate villain and stomping grounds (literally) were my home town of Detroit and environs.

When I came to work for the newspaper in Lansing, I was amazed to learn that The Sheik’s real name was Edward Farhat and that he lived in Williamston - Williamston!, a bucolic little town 20 miles east of Lansing.

On Saturday Solomon and I had quite a chat about The Sheik and his cohorts -  Bobo Brazil, Wild Bill Curry, Haystack Calhoun, Crybaby Cannon, Gorgeous George and, or course, the gravel-voiced Dick the Bruiser ..

The Sheik’s ring persona was that of a wild man from Syria who stopped a nothing to defeat his opponents. He hurled fire balls and used hidden pencils to cut the faces of challengers. (That was part of the show, anyway).

The Sheik died of heart failure in 2003, at age 76, and was laid to rest in Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Williamston.

[sweetswannylawson]

Throwback Memory: This 1959 match featuring Haystacks Calhoun (640 pounds) vs Happy Humphrey (750 pounds) is likely the top contender of the heaviest singles bout in wrestling history.

Editor's Note: Both were big and fat but were not athletes. This kind of hype was a bust. It was never repeated again in the history of sports.

[magicwingslisten]

grappling

[darkmaga-returns]

Jack Hunter

Oct 25, 2024

Donald Trump is doing a whirlwind of interviews with independent media in the homestretch of the 2024 election.

As the Republican presidential nominee pulls ahead in crucial swing state polls, he’s talking to everybody with an audience, notably podcasting giants like Joe Rogan and anyone else who is popular and outside the increasingly distrusted legacy mass media. If Ronald Reagan was said to speak over the heads of media members and directly to the American people, Trump now speaks around the former.

On Monday, Trump appeared on The Undertaker’s podcast. Or, should I say, Donald Trump interviewed The Undertaker. Yes, the World Wrestling Entertainment pro wrestling legend has his own show, “Six Feet Under,” with a large audience, and Trump is no stranger to the WWE, with a long history of being involved in storylines and more.

Trump has known The Undertaker, who in retirement goes by his real name Mark Calaway, for about two decades. So when “Taker” asked Trump for a sit-down interview, he obliged, even just two weeks out from the election

For the first 20 minutes of a 50 minute interview, all the questions came from Donald to Mark. 

It was the damndest thing.

The former president wanted to know what it’s like to be in the pro wrestling business. How many matches did he have? How long had he been in wrestling? How did it affect his body? How tall was he in his prime? (6’ 8” was the answer.) How much did he weigh? How much money is the WWE making and how big is pro wrestling these days? Had The Undertaker heard of “Haystacks Calhoun,” a famous wrestler of the 1960s and ’70s that only a man Trump’s age would recall?

It was a relaxed and fun chat. Though Trump has a history with professional wrestling, he asked questions that any non-wrestling fan, an outsider looking in, might ask about this unusual business.

[hall-of-fame-guy]

WWE Hall of Fame Class of 1994

Bobo Brazil is one of the early African American wrestler and was trained by wrestling legend, Joe Savodi where he was supposed to be called "Harris, BuBu Brazil" but a wrestling promoter mis-spell his name to Bobo Brazil instead.

Bobo first recorded match occurred on March 29th, 1948 as "Houston Harris, The Black Panther" against a wrestler called Armand Myers where the match ended in a 30 mins draw. He would travel around territory like Detroit and even in Japan in the 1950s.

Bobo wrestles the likes of the late Bill Miller and Johnny Valentine and fellow Hall of Famer like Killer Kowalski, Dick The Bruiser, Haystack Calhoun and The Sheik.

On October 18, 1962, Bobo got a chance to wrestle fellow Hall of Famer, "The Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers for the NWA World title and" won" the championship due to a low blow to Roger but he refuse to accept the title and lost the "title" back to Buddy Rogers, and his NWA title "win" was not recognized.

On October 9th, 1970, he teams up with El Mongo and wrestle Mr Ito and Great Ota in a first mixed racial tag match in Atlanta territory history.

Bobo later went on to be a manager for late fellow Hall of Famer, "Soulman" Rocky Johnson and Bobo was managed by another Hall of Famer, the late James Dudley.

Bobo wrestle Kelly Kiniski in his final match and retired in 1993 and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1994 by his longtime rival Ernie Ladd which Bobo returned the honor by inducting Ernie a year later in 1995.

Bobo passed away on January 20th, 1998 at the age of 73.

Accolades:

7x WWWF United States Championship

9x Detroit NWA United States Championship

1x San Francisco NWA United States Championship

1x NWA United States Championship ( current WWE US championship)

1x Toronto NWA United States Championship

8x Detroit NWA World Tag Team Championship

2x Indianapolis WWA World Heavyweight Championship

WWE Hall of Fame Class of 1994

[vintageprofessionalwrestling]

Haystacks Calhoun

[wrestlingisfake]

Chris Jericho has been regularly featured on major-league, nationally televised US wrestling since he debuted with WCW in 1996. Over the course of his run in WWE, he was prominently featured in many big storylines and main events. While not a tippy-toppy guy like Steve Austin, the Rock, Triple H, John Cena, or Shawn Michaels, Jericho worked with all of them, and many more of the biggest stars of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

When Jericho decided to jump to New Japan for Wrestle Kingdom 12, it was seen as a major shift in the industry for a WWE star of his caliber to choose to work outside of the WWE system. His decision to join AEW in 2019 was considered a major PR victory for the new promotion, since it gave them a big name that casual fans and TV network executives had already heard of. The reasoning is that while youth and action will yield good shows, having well-known veterans from WWE and WCW helps to get new viewers to try the product in the first place.

I'm not telling you all this because I like Jericho, or because I want his stupid Learning Tree gimmick all over Ring of Honor. I'm telling you this because, whether I like him or not, he is a big star in pro wrestling and his star power has helped--and can still help--get wrestling shows on TV. The fact that he's 53 years old and clearly past his prime doesn't change any of that. The people who greenlight TV shows are old and out of touch--the kind of people who hear "pro wrestling" and expect to see Andre the Giant and Haystacks Calhoun. So they're just going to be happy ROH has one wrestler they've actually heard of, because even if that wrestler is starting to look like Mickey Rourke, at least he's not dead.

They allegedly put the belt on Jericho, a *checks notes* “prominent star” to help with negotiations in bringing a weekly ROH show to cable tv.

Explain to me (slowly, like I’m a preschooler) why SI is calling this has been windbag a “prominent star”?

[ringthedamnbell]

Fantasy booking-the 1st Intercontinental tournament

Rob Faint We all know the story of how Pat Patterson won the IC title back in 1979.  The story is he won the title in a fictitious tournament in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.   My question is, why did the WWF not run a real tournament?  Who would have been the participants?  In this column I attempt to book the tournament acknowledging Patterson as the eventual winner. Continue reading Untitled

[mostbelovednjpwtournament]

Most Beloved WWE Wrestler Tournament

[brandontalkswrestling]

Don’t support the fat shaming but the mention of Haystacks Calhoun did get a pop out of me

[suspiciousbehaviorproductions]