ANYONE COLLECT WRESTLING REVUE & BOXING ILLUSTRATED/WRESTLING NEWS?

[Batko-migration]

I guess this is kind of off topic since Wrestling Revue and Boxing Illustrated/Wrestling news are magazines, but not comic magazines. In any case, I have a bunch from back in the day that survived the "genocide" of my collections perpetrated by my mom.

 

I was wondering if anyone collects or used to collect these mags? Back in the early 1960s I was a big wrestling fan. Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers was my hero along with the Graham brothers tag team, Eddie and Jerry. Anyone as old and dated as me???

 

Mike

 

[bcolflesh]

I was never interested in pro wrestling, but I pick up boxing mags to use as gifts for my buddies involved in the sport.

[Hepcat]

Anyone as old and dated as me???

 

Me!

 

I was wondering if anyone collects or used to collect these mags?

 

Not currently but maybe one day.

 

Back in the early 1960s I was a big wrestling fan. Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers was my hero....

 

I was a fan of Buddy Rogers because there was a pinup centerfold of Buddy Rogers in the single, solitary Wrestling Revue magazine that my father brought home from the bus or somewhere! I also still remember the Wrestling Revue cover on the newstand featuring Johnny Valentine with his face all covered in blood and the cover blurb screaming "The night I made Buddy Rogers cry!" Johnny Valentine would appear at the London Arena on the odd occasion to battle "The Bulldog" Brower or Sweet Daddy Siki, another big favourite of mine.

 

 

[Batko-migration]

Anyone as old and dated as me???

 

Me!

 

I was wondering if anyone collects or used to collect these mags?

 

Not currently but maybe one day.

 

Back in the early 1960s I was a big wrestling fan. Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers was my hero....

 

I was a fan of Buddy Rogers because there was a pinup centerfold of Buddy Rogers in the single, solitary Wrestling Revue magazine that my father brought home from the bus or somewhere! I also still remember the Wrestling Revue cover on the newstand featuring Johnny Valentine with his face all covered in blood and the cover blurb screaming "The night I made Buddy Rogers cry!" Johnny Valentine would appear at the London Arena on the odd occasion to battle "The Bulldog" Brower or Sweet Daddy Siki, another big favourite of mine.

 

 

I still have all of the issues of Wrestling Revue with Buddy's picture on the cover. I was a member of the "Buddy Nature Boy Rogers" fan club back in the day. I even have a mass card from his funeral in 1991 that the club president, Georgianne, sent me years ago.

 

The first time I ever saw Buddy wrestle not on TV was in the old Madison Square Garden on 59th Street back in 1962. He defended his NWA World Championship against Cowboy Bob Ellis. They fought to a draw in that one. I was 12 and my dad got us ringside seats. I remember that match as if it was yesterday (either alzheimer's is kicking in or the match made a huge impression on me! )

 

What really ticks me off is that Rick Flair stole Buddy's entire act - bleached blond hair, "Nature Boy" nickname, signature Figure Four Leg Lock, the strut, etc. The only thing Flair had of his own was that stupid yell that he used to do. Buddy was too dignified for that!

 

Anyway, I think we're a bit off topic here. But, good to meet another old time wrestling fan!

 

Mike

[Hepcat]

The first time I ever saw Buddy wrestle not on TV was in the old Madison Square Garden on 59th Street back in 1962. He defended his NWA World Championship against Cowboy Bob Ellis. They fought to a draw in that one.

 

Buddy Rogers was the only wrestler to hold both the NWA and WWF championship belts at the same time.

 

 

 

[Batko-migration]

The first time I ever saw Buddy wrestle not on TV was in the old Madison Square Garden on 59th Street back in 1962. He defended his NWA World Championship against Cowboy Bob Ellis. They fought to a draw in that one.

 

Buddy Rogers was the only wrestler to hold both teh NWA and WWF championship belts at the same time.

 

 

 

Actually, that's not exactly correct. Buddy was the first and (if I'm not mistaken) the only wrestler to hold both the NWA and WWWF belts. He could not hold them simultaneously, because the WWWF came into existence after Rogers lost his NWA title to Lou Thesz in Canada in 1963.

 

Vince McMahon, Sr. (present day Vince's dad) and Willie Gillsenberg took umbrage with Thesz's victory over Rogers in Canada. All NWA championship matches in those days were decided by winning 2 out of 3 falls. However, the Rogers-Thesz title bout was only 1 fall! Also, there were some other discrepanices that pointed to the NWA heads in Chicago trying to oust Buddy any way they could.

 

On "Capitol Arena" wrestling on TV I remember when Gillsenberg announced that he and McMahon started the WORLD WIDE WRESTLING FEDERATION (WWWF) whose name was later shortened to the WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION (WWF). They did not recognize Rogers' defeat by Thesz and Gillsenberg presented Buddy with the WWWF world championship belt during that TV interview and announcement.

 

Interestingly, the WWWF was put together so fast that they initially didn't have a championship belt and Rogers was presented with his own NWA United States Championship belt that he won prior to beating Pat O'Connor for the NWA World championship in Comiskey Park back in June, 1961. (Rogers never gave up that belt since he never was defeated as the U.S. Champion. He fought and defeated O'Connor for the world title while he was U.S. champ.)

 

So, Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers was the first WWF (WWWF) World Heavyweight Champion and the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, albeit not simultaneously.

 

Mike

[shadroch]

I started following wrestling around 1965. I was living on Governors Island in Ny Harbor and my uncle took me to Sunnyside Gardens for a Sunday matinee. I'd never seen anything like it. There was a tag team match that involved the fattest man I'd ever seen( Haysticks Calhoun?) getting beaten up by two guys until he grabbed a chain with a horseshoe and chased them out of the ring while the crowd went nuts. In the main event, Victor Rivera and a black guy( Rocky Johnson?) took on Baron Mikel Secona and Fritz von Erich( who got the crowd aroused by giving nazi salutes and goose-stepping around the ring.

Been a lifetime fan ever since. Even attended Johnny Rodz wrestling school and did a short tour thru Mexico as a lark.

[bluerosekiller]

Hey Batko - It's good to see someone else here that collects vintage combat sports magazines. Though, with me, it's boxing magazines. And one of my personal favorites was/is BOXING ILLUSTRATED/WRESTLING NEWS. I just LOVE those things.

I began collecting BOXING ILLUSTRATED & THE RING on the same day in the summer of '76 when I was 14. Which was just a few months after I'd begun to follow the sport & became a lifelong, die hard fan.

I'd become a big Ken Norton fan while watching his fights on the undercard of Ali's fights on television, which led up to there third bout that September. And, the magazines were, of course, doing cover stories on that upcoming fight. So, on that day, I purchased both of those issues. Which became, the first two boxing magazines of thousands that I would collect over the next 36 years & counting.

Though THE RING is a great, iconic magazine to collect, it's also THE most commonly collected one. Me? Again, BOXING ILLUSTRATED is my personal fav. Always has been.

They're tough to find though.

ESPECIALLY the older ones that still incorporated WRESTLING NEWS in each issue. Luckily, when I first began collecting them, there were still plenty of used bookstores around that dealt in old magazines. And, better yet, they were CHEAP.

That's where I got a hold of the vast majority of mine anyhow.

 

- Jim

[namisgr]

I followed wrestling in the late sixties and still have a handful of issues of Wrestling World. Bruno Sammartino was the eternal, unbeatable champ of the WWWF at the time, and the live championship cards did great box office here in the Northeast.

[Batko-migration]

I started following wrestling around 1965. I was living on Governors Island in Ny Harbor and my uncle took me to Sunnyside Gardens for a Sunday matinee. I'd never seen anything like it. There was a tag team match that involved the fattest man I'd ever seen( Haysticks Calhoun?) getting beaten up by two guys until he grabbed a chain with a horseshoe and chased them out of the ring while the crowd went nuts. In the main event, Victor Rivera and a black guy( Rocky Johnson?) took on Baron Mikel Secona and Fritz von Erich( who got the crowd aroused by giving nazi salutes and goose-stepping around the ring.

Been a lifetime fan ever since. Even attended Johnny Rodz wrestling school and did a short tour thru Mexico as a lark.

 

I remember the old Sunnyside Gardens. They had some pretty good wrestling cards there. Also, it was a small arena and no matter where you sat the view was great. I remember seeing Buddy Rogers, Johnny Barend, Magnificent Maurice, Bobo Brazil, and other greats of the Golden Era wrestle at Sunnyside Gardens. They tore the arena down about 30 years ago.

 

Haystacks Calhoun weighed in at 601 lbs., but was fast as lightening. He could move around faster than some wrestlers 1/3 his weight. Many a heel was crushed by his signature finishing move - the "splash." He used to fight in "handicapp" matches against two wrestlers on NWA Thursday night wrestling on TV from Capitol Arena in Washington, DC. Usually, two mediocre heels like Judo Jack Terry and Karl Von Hess would get their asses kicked by the massive baby face to the delight of the fans!

 

Haystacks and the old Sunnyside Gardens Arena in Sunnyside, Queens pictured below!

 

Mike

 

[Batko-migration]

Hey Batko - It's good to see someone else here that collects vintage combat sports magazines. Though, with me, it's boxing magazines. And one of my personal favorites was/is BOXING ILLUSTRATED/WRESTLING NEWS. I just LOVE those things.

I began collecting BOXING ILLUSTRATED & THE RING on the same day in the summer of '76 when I was 14. Which was just a few months after I'd begun to follow the sport & became a lifelong, die hard fan.

I'd become a big Ken Norton fan while watching his fights on the undercard of Ali's fights on television, which led up to there third bout that September. And, the magazines were, of course, doing cover stories on that upcoming fight. So, on that day, I purchased both of those issues. Which became, the first two boxing magazines of thousands that I would collect over the next 36 years & counting.

Though THE RING is a great, iconic magazine to collect, it's also THE most commonly collected one. Me? Again, BOXING ILLUSTRATED is my personal fav. Always has been.

They're tough to find though.

ESPECIALLY the older ones that still incorporated WRESTLING NEWS in each issue. Luckily, when I first began collecting them, there were still plenty of used bookstores around that dealt in old magazines. And, better yet, they were CHEAP.

That's where I got a hold of the vast majority of mine anyhow.

 

- Jim

 

I still have some old issues of Boxing Illustrated Wrestling News in NM condition from 1958, 59, 61 that have in the wrestling section feature articles on my favorites: Buddy Nature Boy Rogers, the Graham Brothers (Eddie and Jerry), etc. I'm going to try to attach some photos, but for some reason my camera takes pics that are too big to attach here.

 

I used to follow boxing and was a Sonny Liston fan. After the bum threw the fight to Clay and later was found dead from a drug overdose, I kind of cooled down toward boxing. (My dad used to own a gin mill on East 10th Street and Avenue B on the lower east side in the building where Rocky Graziano's mother lived.)

 

Mike

 

[ft88]

Just got a nice collection of wrestling magazine from all eras. Here are some of the early Wrestling Revues I think have some value. Had some of the old wrestling cards too.

 

[Batko-migration]

These two are on eBAY, so I assume that you have the auctions for the other vintage issues. I was thinking about bidding on your WR #3 (Bastien Bros. on cover), but someone just picked it up for $30 on a Buy-It-Now. It was worth the $30, but I just picked up a Famous Monsters of Filmland #4 with Ghoul's Eye sticker yesterday and a Warren Spacemen #1 today, so I was kind of reluctant to shell out the cash.

 

I don't think you're going to get $190 Buy-It-Now on WR #1. The conditon is not that great from what I can see. It's probably worth the $100 opening bid. I've got a beauty socked away, but I don't sell. I just keep on collecting!

 

I really lucked out yesterday. I check eBay out a few times a day and yesterday I ran into an unbelievable auction that just came on line before I found it - FM #4 with Ghoul's Eye sticker for a $149.00 Buy-It-Now!!! (See photos below)

 

I have seen a few of these in crappy condition come up for auction every now and then for crazy money. This one hit me in the face and my hand was trembling fumbling to press the Buy-It-Now and Commit to Pay buttons knowing that it could disappear in a flash if someone else spotted it. Check it out below. Below that is Spacemen #1 that I won today for $41.00. Also, not a bad price, but no where near the score that I made with FM #4 with sticker.

 

Sorry, I can't post any photos of either mag due to the fact this stupid system won't allow posting any pic bigger than 200 kbs. They are just over the limit. Any other way to post photos on this list? If you're interested in seeing pics of the mags I can email them. That FM #4 is probably a 6.5, maybe a 7.0 grade.

- Mike

[Batko-migration]

By the way, I am interested in anything related to Buddy Nature Boy Rogers. If any of your wrestling cards have a Rogers match let me know. I might be interested in buying it. Thanks!

- Mike

 

P.S. The WR issues with Buddy on the cover in your auctions are already in my collection.

[ft88]

Cool, I sent you a PM. As a 40 year old, I'm a child of Wrestlemania which was just pervasive in the late 80s. I was telling some co-workers about the collection and we started going through the characters and just laughing. Rowdy Piper, Iron Shiek, Superfly (top rope!) and getting to the randoms like the British Bull Dog and Missing Link. Some powerful nostalgia there.

 

Even as a teenager, I remember thinking "how stupid" all this was but you couldn't stop watching it was just so damn entertaining. Our generations Jersey Shore and Kardashians?

 

Ed

[Batko-migration]

Cool, I sent you a PM. As a 40 year old, I'm a child of Wrestlemania which was just pervasive in the late 80s. I was telling some co-workers about the collection and we started going through the characters and just laughing. Rowdy Piper, Iron Shiek, Superfly (top rope!) and getting to the randoms like the British Bull Dog and Missing Link. Some powerful nostalgia there.

 

Even as a teenager, I remember thinking "how stupid" all this was but you couldn't stop watching it was just so damn entertaining. Our generations Jersey Shore and Kardashians?

 

Ed

 

Hey, Ed! I got into wrestling a bit before you. I was 9 years old when my parents allowed me to start watching it in 1959.

 

Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers became my favorite immeditely with the tag team of Jerry and Eddie Graham my second favorites (the cover of your Wrestling Revue #1). The Fabulous Kangaroos (Roy Heffernan and Al Costello with Wild Red Berry their manager) comprised my second favorite tag team.

 

Killer Kowalski, Handsome Johnny Barend, Cowboy Bob Orton (Randy Orton's GRANDFATHER!), Skull Murphy, and Johnny Valentine (before he became a baby face) were some of my favorites that I wax nostalgic about.

 

I used to cheer for the heels. They always seemed alot more interesting than the baby faces like Antonino Rocca, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Bobo Brazil, Edouard Carpentier, Billy Darnell, and the rest of those goody-goodies!

 

In my neighborhood in East New York Brooklyn (NYC) the kids my age of 9 up to about 14 or so and the old folks like my grandfather believed that it was all for real. Everyone else who was rational and/or sober knew differently. At that time all the old people in the neighborhood were from the other side, i.e. Russia, Ukraine, Poland, etc.

 

I remember watching wrestling with my grandfather on TV. That's where I picked up some of my Russian and English cuss words. One time when my hero, Buddy Rogers, was kicking the out of some baby face on Capitol Arena Wrestling on TV I remember to this day my grandpa shouting in a thick Russian accent, "Son of person_without_enough_empathy. He eez son of person_without_enough_empathy."

 

We used to hold our own wrestling matches. Buddy Rogers had offered $10,000 to anyone who could break his signature submission hold - the Figure Four Leg Lock. I offered 50 cents to any kid who could break out of mine!

(No one ever collected!!!)

 

Those were the days, my friend!

 

Mike

Below are some of the guys from my day - The Kangaroos and Wild Red Berry, Handsome Johnny Barend and Buddy Rogers as a tag team, Cowboy Bob Orton, Sr. (Randy Orton's grandpa), Antonino Rocca roughing up my idol, and Dr. Jerry Graham and Eddie Graham my tag team idols.

[Batko-migration]

Ed, I just put up for auction on eBay an extra copy that I have of the Winter 1961 issue of Wrestling Revue with U.S. Champ Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers on the cover. You can check it out at:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WINTER-1961-WRESTLING-REVUE-FINE-6-5-/130758878450?pt=Vintage_Sports_Memorabilia&hash=item1e71d624f2

 

Mike

[Theagenes]

I used to have huge collection of boxing and wrestling magazines but I sold them all on ebay a few years ago to clear out room. Mostly from the 70's and 80's though. PWI, The Ring, KO, etc.

 

 

This is a 1926 issue of The Ring that I still have in my collection though. It's notable because is has a letter from a 20 year old Robert E. Howard giving his thoughts on who the greatest heavyweights were.

 

 

 

 

[Batko-migration]

Who is Robert E. Howard? - Mike

[Theagenes]

Who is Robert E. Howard? - Mike

 

The creator of Conan.