Pro Wrestling Hall Of Fame, The: The Storytellers

Greg Oliver

Description

You can't escape pro wrestling today, even if you want to. Its stars are ubiquitous in movies, TV shows, product endorsements, swag, and social media to the point that they are as much celebrities as they are athletes. Pro wrestling has morphed from the fringes of acceptability to a global [1 billion industry that plays an everyday role in 21st-century pop culture. In this latest addition to the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame series, Greg Oliver and Steven Johnson explain how the sport's unique take on storytelling has fueled its remarkable expansion. Hundreds of interviews and original accounts inform this exploration of the imaginative ways in which wrestlers and promoters have used everything from monkeys to murderers to put butts in seats and eyes on screens. From the New York City Bowery in the 1890s to a North Carolina backyard in 2017, readers will encounter all manner of scoundrels, do-gooders, scribes, and alligators in this highly readable, heavily researched book that inspires

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 05 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781773054216
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame The Storytellers From The Terrible Turk to Twitter
Greg Oliver and Steven Johnson



This book is dedicated to Dean Silverstone and the memory of his loving wife, Ruth

Ruth and Dean Silverstone are joined by wrestler Joyce Grable (r) at a Cauliflower Alley Club reunion in Las Vegas.
Photo by Greg Oliver


Contents
Foreword
Introduction: Wrestling Storytelling
The Origins of Sports Entertainment
Introduction
I. The Parson of Chicago
II. The Terrible Turk
III. That Masked Man
Blood, Mud, and Smelt
Introduction
I. The Milwaukee Dreamer
II. First Blood
III. The Trustbuster
The Spectacles
Introduction
I. World’s Greatest Manager
II. The Red Devil
III. The Kindest Angel
Learning the Ropes
Introduction
I. Carnival Rides
II. The Greatest Training Camp Ever
III. Six Degrees of Keirn
Voices of the Game
Introduction
I. The First Storyteller
II. The Professor
III. Return to the Front Lines
Sideshows
Introduction
I. The Monkey in the Ring
II. Bearly Getting By
III. Size Doesn’t Matter
Adventures in Storytelling
Introduction
I. The Great Detroit Barroom Brawl
II. Bridge over Troubled Waters
III. Delete! Delete!
Celebrity Jeopardy
Introduction
I. Put Up Your Dukes
II. The Fugitive
III. Ready to Rumble
Helping Hands
Introduction
I. Unsung Heroes
II. The Perennial Candidate
III. The Cutting of Dr. Beach
The Rise and Fall of the Territories
Introduction
I. The Godfather of Wrestling
II. You Can’t Fight City Hall
III. Let Them Eat Cake
Newsstand
Introduction
I. Fake News
II. Puppetry
III. Dirt Sheets
We’re Hardcore
Introduction
I. Rung by Rung
II. Jawbreaker
III. Don’t Try This at Home
Wrestling with an Attitude
Introduction
I. Fool Me Once . . .
II. The Magic Makers
III. SARSA
When Wrestling Became Content
Introduction
I. The Write Stuff
II. Takeover Bid
III. Digital Storytelling
Afterword: Fifty Shades of Gray
Photos
Photographers
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright


Foreword
When I was approached to contribute to The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Storytellers , I thought about writing in character as The Blue Meanie. But the more I thought about it, I figured it would be better to be myself, Brian Heffron. The truth is, there’s more of myself in The Blue Meanie than there was originally supposed to be.
Scott Levy — a.k.a. Raven — is one of the best minds in the wrestling business. He’s given to the wrestling business more than anyone knows: he created many characters in ECW, with the most famous being The Dudley Boyz. So when Raven asked if I wanted to be a part of his stable known as “The Flock,” it was a no-brainer. Even when he pitched his idea of me becoming The Blue Meanie, I never hesitated to accept.
Raven took the concept to ECW’s mad scientist/owner Paul Heyman and, at November to Remember ’95, The Blue Meanie was born. It was Raven’s sidekick, Dancin’ Stevie Richards, who brought me out of the ECW audience and baptized me into ECW and Raven’s Flock. Raven had seen me and thought everything I had done up to that point as then–Brian Rollins reminded him of a villain from The Beatles’s movie, Yellow Submarine . And at first he wanted me to be exactly like the character in the movie but, as time went on, I poured more of myself into The Blue Meanie.
I grew up with many influences, from wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow to guitar hero Eddie Van Halen to comedy icon George Carlin. Also, as a kid, I tried to mimic the wrestlers I had seen on television. I would take a camcorder and practice wrestling interviews. When I was brushing my hair in the bathroom, I would do a quick promo in the mirror. Even to this day I often think of wrestling scenarios and play out scenes and promos in my head. They have a tendency to slip out, and my wife Tracy (“Mrs. Meanie”) will turn to me and say, “You’re in promo land, right?”
When it came time to start my wrestling training with my soon-to-be best friend Al Snow, promo class came easy. When Raven first had me take on The Blue Meanie character, he would have me stand in the center of his living room and cut promos on whatever topic he could throw at me to keep me off-guard and keep my promo skills sharp.
Once Raven presented the idea of Stevie Richards and I doing parodies of other known characters, that’s when I started to evolve. Whether I was aping Goldust as Bluedust or rocking out like KISS or demanding a better society with my Blue World Order pals, Stevie Richards and Super Nova, I was telling a story, however wacky it might have been.
But I really got my Ph.D. in how to do a promo under the tutelage of Paul Heyman. Not only was Paul an excellent speaker himself, he was clear in what he wanted his performers to say, the message we used to capture our audience.
Many a night after an ECW television taping, Paul would hold court as the ECW locker room did promos for their matches. He would also do short snippets of promos or a skit to tag on at the end of ECW TV in a segment unofficially dubbed “Pulp Fiction,” which allowed everyone to get TV time and get their characters over.
Don’t laugh, but all these drills have prepared me for a lot in real life.
You are cutting a promo in a job interview, aren’t you? Telling a story, tying it in to why you belong there. I can improvise with the best of them, whether it’s with my friends or on a movie set.
Wrestling character development has made me mentally tough. These experiences have made me the man I am today, and I have no idea where I would be in life without them. What I do know, as you’ll further learn in these pages, is that I’m not alone in taking a spark of an idea and running with it, making something happen in pro wrestling.

Photo by George Tahinos
There’s something magical about the world of pro wrestling — the storytelling. Wrestling has had me run through the gamut of emotions, from the fear of the villains to the joy of when a favorite wrestler wins a match. All of that was attained through the art of storytelling, whether it be through the brilliance of the booker or subtle nuances in the way the wrestler emotes the pain, anger, or joy of contest at hand. All parties involved have had me wipe my brow, stomp my feet, pump my fist, and lose my voice.
Now that I am on the other side of the guardrail, I’ve been fortunate to be on the opposite ends of said emotions. I’ve been booed and cheered, and received punches and high fives. All thanks to the guidance of a trainer like Al Snow, a genius like Paul Heyman, an opponent like Tracy Smothers, and the vibe I fed off from the fans. All of this was done by great storytelling and great storytellers.
“The Blue Meanie”
Brian Heffron
May 2019


Introduction
Ted Tourtas was Greek by birth, but in the not-too-particular world of professional wrestling, he was billed for a spell in the Pacific Northwest as an underhanded, bile-spitting Turk. It was all the same to Tourtas, as long as he was eking out a living. When a promoter in Seattle, Washington, determined that Tourtas’ malevolent persona might affect the gate receipts, that was another matter entirely.
The promoter took me in the office. He had boxes of mail. He said, “Ted, you see that? They’re all Turks, Muslims, and so on. They say they’re going to start boycotting the wrestling matches if they kept booking you because you’re insulting the Turks . . . You’d better switch and be the clean guy.” So we get into the ring with another kid. This guy was another pretty boy. I back him into the ropes and show him like I’m going to hit him and grab his hair and they started screaming, “Why, you dirty . . .” I said, “What did I do wrong?” So I back him in a little later. I took his hand and shook his hand and backed away. Right from then on, I was a hero. “Hey, The Turk is good.” So that was the end of The Turk. See, you can play with their minds any way you want. I was a hero. Old ladies would knit socks for me. They’d bring me a box of cigars. I smoked cigars then. I was their hero. A week before, they wanted to lynch me.

Ted Tourtas was a pretty boy, a Turk, a Greek, or whatever made promoters happy.
Reproduced from the original held by the Department of Special Collections of the University Libraries of Notre Dame
It might have said “wrestling” on the marquee or in the newspaper ads, and that aspect of Tourtas’ work was important. But what really got fans to cheer or jeer or darn socks was the story he was telling in the ring, a tried-and-true one in pro wrestling circles — the bad guy wasn’t so bad once you got to know him. Since its inception as a carnival-type attraction, pay-for-play wrestling has navigated a tricky course, drifting between outrageous entertainment and mainstream athletic competition. The common denominator in the bounce between farce and honesty has been the storyline.
Sports such as baseball, prizefighting, and horseracing regularly develop backstories to their contests — a traded player squares off against his old team, or a past-his-prime boxer gets one last shot at a championship. But that’s where the storyline ends; once on the field of battle, the tales are secondary to the competition itself. Not so in wrestling. Storytelling represents the foundation of the sport. It might be a story of teacher versus pupil — Larry Zbyszko smashing a chair over the head of his mentor Bruno Sammartino because he could