In the previous installment of this series, I shared some details regarding some of the more "uncool" selections from my record collection...and I received a bit of ribbing from some of you kind folks afterward. This time, I'm writing a bit on a different (and slightly more embarrassing) matter...It's time to talk a bit about my fondness for professional wrestling.

Now, I am not talking about the corporate monolith known as WWF/WWE (although I must admit that this too was a passing fancy for me back in the early to mid ‘90s).  What I am referring to are the regional pro wrestling outfits that were prominent when I lived in central Kentucky back in the early ‘80s. 10 year-old kids find a lot of weird stuff entertaining anyway...But I had never really seen anything comparable to the spectacle of professional wrestling until 1982 or so and it was really exciting.  The two biggest promotions in the Lexington area were Memphis-based Championship Wrestling and International Championship Wrestling (ICW).  Championship Wrestling was home to Jerry "The King" Lawler around the time of his infamous feud with Andy Kaufman.  A lot of other big names came through Memphis (like Dutch Mantel, Bill Dundee, Austin Idol, etc.)  and quite a few of them made it to the "big time" WCW and WWF promotions years later.  Championship Wrestling had a one-hour show that was on every Saturday when I lived in Lexington.  From time to time, I made audio tapes of the episodes (this was long before we had a VCR) and I listened to them over and over again. Every so often, the Memphis promotion featured a jam-packed card at Lexington's Rupp Arena but most of the big events were held at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.  I was lucky enough to make it to one of the Rupp cards and I think I still have the original program from that event.

I have heard ICW referred to as an "outlaw" promotion.  I think this may have something to do with the fact that they resisted selling out to larger promotions for a long time.  ICW was run by the legendary Angelo Poffo, the one-time record holder for consecutive sit-ups and the father of Randy "Macho Man" Savage and Lanny Poffo.  I think ICW aired on Sundays in Lexington and the show was very gritty and low-budget.  I never made it to an ICW card, but the television show aired a lot of footage from the Rupp events.  One of the best matches ever was a much-anticipated steel cage match between Savage and the super-evil heel Ratamyus.  ICW aired the entire one-hour match on television about a week or so after the match had taken place at Rupp and it was absolute gore and insanity.  What I mean to say here is that it was a classic match.  It's been over 20 years since I saw this match and it still stands out in my mind as a wrestling masterpiece.  I have been searching high and low for video footage of this match for years, but no luck yet.

This was all high entertainment back then.  There seems to be some resurgence of interest in the "old school" independent wrestling promotions of the '70s and '80s on the Internet these days.  In the recent past, I have been fortunate enough to acquire some VHS and DVD recordings of old Championship Wrestling and ICW broadcasts.  One of the DVD sets is 12 discs altogether...That's 40 to 50 hours of wrestling, folks.  I still haven't made it through that set despite the fact that I have had the discs for a while now.  The footage is really choppy, grainy and downright miserable in some places, but these programs really take me back (Not to mention the fact that it's a lot better to watch old crappy video than to listen to an old audio tape of a wrestling match...yeesh!)  I have long since lost those old audio tapes anyway, so I was pretty excited to find that I had scored some of the same episodes on video some 20 years later.

About once a year, I get the urge to get the videos out and watch my favorite parts.  I am back in the thick of my annual wrestling frenzy as I write this.  It's proof that no matter how old I get, there are just some things that I won't outgrow.  In fact, I still get all giddy when I see the old clip in which Jerry Lawler beats Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA title.