Author: M. Swift

So, I just rode past the Vault and “Into the Vault 1996” has been greenlit. While I’m getting that together and seeing what was already covered in 1996, let’s stop by the Wrestling Salvage Yard real quick. We’ve got a tough one here in Nathan Jones.  It Came From Australia  “The Colossus of Boggo Road” is such an ominous, badass nickname. Just let me get that off my chest before we dive in. Jones was a giant at 6’11 and around 320lbs. Hailing from Australia, he was locked up at 17 for eight bank robberies in Tasmania in the late 1980s. The man was at least 14-years old…

There are a number of wrestling families, some even go back three and four generations. In that family, you have the wrestlers who put the name on the map, the family members who make the name a national or international name, and those who are poor representatives of the name. Let’s look at Afa Jr and see if he blemished the name or blew his chances.  Afa Jr: The Samoan Storm  I’ve watched Afa Jr since his father’s WXW promotion was available to watch online in the early 2000s. I thought it was cool that someone who was still in high school was in-ring. Between…

“The King of Old School” Steve Corino is someone who rose in Extreme Championship Wrestling in a short time and at the right time. He worked well as a manager for Rhino and Tajiri as well as tagging with C.W Anderson. However, once he was a singles threat, he really popped.  Before The King of Old School  Corino is a student of the game and loves old school wrestling. To me, that makes him right for his current position backstage. Before that, he was this small guy who looked like he was somewhere in the family tree of Devon Storm—pre-Crowbar.   At first…

Jerry Lynn was one of my favorites in ECW. With the tape trade and later on thanks to YouTube, I was able to go back and look at some of his pre-ECW stuff. The guy was a hard worker in WCW and had one hell of a rivalry with Sean Waltman on the indies. Meanwhile, Waltman was someone who was regularly in a major promotion.  Neither would be considered a top guy at any point in their careers but I always loved this dynamic between them because they were literally the perfect opponents for each other. The 2000s version of…

In wrestling, the finishing move is a wrestler’s trademark. They end matches with it, it’s their signature on a show. Throughout history, there have been a few finishing moves that were either awesome at one time and became trash or regular moves decades later or they were never awesome to begin with. Let’s look at five finishing moves that lost importance over time. 5. DDT There was a time when the DDT was feared. Jake Roberts? Primo DDT action. Even though Arn Anderson, Tommy Dreamer, and Michael P.S Hayes used the move as their finisher or back up finisher, the move…

Also known as IWA Kawasaki Dream, the IWA King of the Deathmatch 1995 show was the first wrestling tape I purchased via the tape trade. Ever since the special segment that WWE ran on the Four Faces of Foley during the Attitude Era, I had to watch some of Mick Foley in Japan.  Now, I also had The Best of Cactus Jack in Japan in that order but this deathmatch tournament was talked about among wrestling fans thanks to newsletters and the early commercial internet. Let’s get started with this Into the Vault ‘95 Special!  Low-Tier  Let’s kick off IWA King of the Deathmatch 1995 with…

Last Saturday, Major League Wrestling ran the seventh MLW Anthology. This episode focuses on the Extreme Horsemen faction of Simon Diamond, C.W Anderson, Justin Credible, and leader Steve Corino. Barry Windham and J.J Dillon were members for a brief period.  The faction wasn’t in MLW long. Major League Wrestling’s first run was under a year and half between 2002 and 2004. The Extreme Horsemen came together in 2002. That said, they were MLW’s major heel group. This episode of MLW Anthology gives us a twofer, highlights, and ends with this week’s MLW Pulp Fusion.  Florida Deathmatch: Steve Corino vs. Dusty Rhodes vs. Terry Funk (MLW King…

KYFB TV-5 (Oil Trough, TX) – On Wednesday, June 24, a local wrestler walked to an Oil Trough pawn shop hoping to pawn several championship wrestling belts from a historic promotion.   “The UWF Had All These Historic Wrestling Championships!”  “Punitive Pugilist” Pete the Polish Palooka (45) entered the wrestling business after a failed run as a club boxer. “Oh, I boxed at all the big places!” Pete the Polish Palooka pontificated. “The Junkyard strip club in Gerbil’s Tunnel, Georgia! Dirty Drippins strip club in Dank Rag, Delaware! How about Assgard right here in Oil Trough? Oh, I’ve thrown leather all throughout the South!”  In…

Discovering the origin of some wrestling moves can be fun. This is especially true when you can see when the move was a truly important finisher and trace it to when it became oversaturated. One move that was considered one of the most devastating in wrestling was the Burning Hammer.  An Overused Big Match Finisher: The Burning Hammer  This move came to us via Kenta Kobashi in the 90s All Japan but can be traced a few years earlier to Kyoko Inoue and her Victoria Driver. His finishers were the Burning Lariat and the Orange Crush but because of All Japan’s main event…

We’re back in the Wrestling Salvage Yard! This time, we’re looking at a gimmick that was in WWE for a brief period. So brief, that you would’ve probably forgotten he was there! Battle Kat was played by two WWE enhancement talents in Brady Boone and Bob Bradley. Both were familiar with each other and also very athletic.   The Battle Kat gimmick was tailor-made for Boone but when he was released a month or two into the character’s run, his B-show/house show rival Bradley took over. Could Battle Kat have been a bigger character?  Normally, I’d go into the history of…