Bobo Brazil! The Olympic! What a trip down memory lane! Didn't Bobo Brazil have a head-butt trick he called the "coconut cracker" or something similar?

In the '50s, when I was most aware of such goings on, as best I recall it, you had nationally televised boxing matches Wednesday and Friday evenings, the latter sponsored by Gillette, a full card of boxing from the Olympic Thursday night and another full card from the Hollywood Legion Stadium on Saturday night. You had an evening of wrestling on Monday night and another on Wednesday night after the boxing match. The wrestling was also from the Olympic and Legion Stadium although I forget which was Monday and which was Wednesday. I can recall hurrying to try to finish my homework on Thursday nights to watch the boxing main events with my grandfather. There was also wrestling televised from the arena at South Gate--a different circuit of wrestlers from those at the Olympic and Legion Stadium. The audiences were very politically incorrect: For example, one of the wrestlers as South Gate was an Englishman called Lord Carleton. He had a turbaned Indian known as Swami Singh as his attendant. Before the match, Swami would pray for Lord Carleton while the crowd pelted him with trash! Great times! Was Dick Lane still the broadcaster when you watched the wrestling matches?

As to roller derby, I worked with an erstwhile roller derby queen in the '70s. Quite attractive but as dykey as South Holland and very treacherous.

Last edited by captainpreppy (2011-07-08 22:40:32)

I think the decline in popularity, in a public sense, of those sorts of events has to do with the rise in popularity of team sports in society. Or maybe the powers that be want to drill "team, team, take one for the team" into the heads of the populace while they look out for themselves. I certainly remember watching a lot of individual sports when I was a kid, but now you have to hunt long and hard to find anything that doesn't involve at least a half-dozen players.

Last edited by The_Shooman (2011-07-12 22:23:28)

Last edited by Maximilien de Robespierre (2011-07-13 01:18:00)