Let's be honest if your older than thirty and still watch professional wrestling you still love it. Most  of my friends and family around my age outgrew it a long ago, not me. No I stayed around even through the thin, shitty gimmick years. Sadly I miss the shitty gimmick years. Smart fans or "Marks" as they are called have become quite computer savvy in the last decade or so. These keyboard warriors constantly bash a lot of the old and new content of the business through social media. I don't think they truly appreciate the time before the internet, before the dirt sheets & hotlines, even before cable television. Those were good times indeed. It was my inspiration for a podcast and now this blog. You had it all back then the good, the bad and the really ugly. Looking back it was the simplicity that still intrigues me. I understand how the business evolved and how it became more entertaining than wrestling but when it was simple..it was good. Scary good in some territories and regional organizations. Picture the top guy (the baby face)  and the bad guy (the heel for all those whose are reading this and reading cause you love me and not wrestling) about to embark on a heated feud. A program or angle as the pro's call it can go on for weeks maybe even a few months if we are lucky. 

Now some guys sold their gimmicks very well. So well that even in public they stayed in character for the sake of the story line. If they got hurt (on TV of course) they stayed home. If the heel was with a group or "stable" then the face would recruit other top good guys or young rookies to help fight the good fight. The longer the feud the better. Back then it kept your interest. A lot of the stories were over the top, some were reality based but all sorts of fun to watch. The absolute best t was when the feud would get so heated it needed to confines of the STEEL CAGE. I remember as a kid going to Madison Square Garden almost monthly for about 3 years straight. No RAW, no Smackdown, no IMPACT and at the time no Cable TV in the five boroughs of New York City. When it became time for intermission, the ring announcer would always come out to let us know who was going to be on next months card. If there was a steel cage match announced, it was certain that this feud was coming to an end. To see a cage match live back then was quite a spectacle. If you sat close enough you were even luckier. I mean this was a cage! Two gladiators squaring off no interference and sometimes not even a referee! 


The sheer brutality as the two combatants beat each other all over the cage utilizing the massive fifteen to twenty foot structure to the fullest. The performers knew the importance of the cage match and made sure they went all out to make you believe carnage  was ensuing. The better the performers, the more poetic it became. I say poetic because these guys told a story. Orchestrated through crimson masks they told the audience that this was it, win or lose both wrestlers were never going to be the same again.  The significance of the steel cage is a lost art in this crazy world of sports entertainment. Still entertained but never like I was when I was in my youth. From the seventies to the early nineties the steel cage was a staple in pro wrestling. Gimmick matches have evolved to table, ladders, chairs and all sorts of other furniture. The cage match needs a come back. WWE's late June release of "WarGames: WCW's most notorious matches" hopefully can spark the interest of these bonehead writers who continue to insult the intelligence of the older fan with an awful product currently on television. Thanks for reading, if you want to know more about the Turnbuckle Throwbacks Podcast and now blog here is my info:

Phil Raia
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