Author: Robski McFadden

Chairman Ram Kaicho – Wrestling’s Child of Darkness. Humans may be at the top of the food chain, but we are not invulnerable. There are many creatures that could kill us in an instant if we dropped our guard. Nobody is afraid of a cub when it is young. But the smartest men know to make themselves scarce when they see a full-grown lion, a tiger, or a bear. We have all had a laugh at Chairman Ram when she was little. Now she is full-grown, she should not be taken so lightly. There has been no shortage of wrestling…

The term Lucha Libre translates literally as “free fighting”. This is not an industry trying to convince us the combat is real. Luchadors are fighters in a broader sense. They fight for honour, for fame, for money, or just for the passion of their craft. For Fray Tormenta, his cause may seem like the plot to a movie, but he fought for something greater than himself. Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez was born in one of the smallest municipalities of Hidalgo, Mexico, on May 9, 1945. San Augustín Metzquititlán has never had a population that reached ten thousand people. Yet most of…

World Championship Wrestling Australia. Before it became a poor excuse to share photos of women in bikinis on social media, the initials “W.C.W.” stood for only one thing.  World Championship Wrestling remains the entity that has come closest to defeating the WWE. It has now been twenty years since the promotion ceased operations and was sold off to their rivals. But, before there could be a World Championship Wrestling, there was World Championship Wrestling. Jim Barnett spent his entire adult life in the wrestling business. He got his start working on a publication owned by wrestler and promoter Fred Kohler…

Gene LeBell. Every industry has their icons. Hollywood has John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Music has Elvis. TV has David Hasselhoff. Stand-up comedy has Jay Leno and Steve Martin. Martial arts have Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. MMA has the Gracie family. Wrestling has Lou Thesz and Frank Gotch. Lucha libre has Mil Mascaras. One thing these icons have in common is that they have all grappled with Gene LeBell. Ivan Gene LeBell was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1932. His mother, Aileen, was working as a secretary for the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Her work meant that her…

The current “Women’s Revolution” in wrestling appears to be anything but revolutionary. Women wrestlers are finally getting the opportunity to do things they were already doing. If it seems like they have become more demanding, it is because they have seen how easily it can all be taken away. This is the story of the Ladies Professional Wrestling Association, a blueprint for a revolution. The first ‘Rocky’ movie hit cinemas nearly fifty years ago. The franchise used to have a knack for launching people into superstardom. Such was the case when Hulk Hogan had a small role in the third…

The main difference between wrestling and sport-entertainment is that one is a personality-driven business. It doesn’t always matter to a promoter how much skill or strength you have. They want showmen who can entertain. Ernest “The Cat” Miller prided himself on being someone who had the skills to back up his showmanship. Ernest was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1964. As hard as it may be to believe now, he was a painfully shy child. He often preferred to stay inside by himself rather than play with local kids. This shyness made the self-confessed “Momma’s Boy” an easy target for…

D-Von Dudley. All who disregarded D-Von’s commandment that “Thou shalt not f**k with the Dudleys” atoned for this sin in brutal ways. Their punishment rituals helped make them one of the most popular tag teams in wrestling. But D-Von brought more to the table than just the tables. Devon Hughes spent his early years in a rough district of Brooklyn, New York. He was moved to New Jersey by his grandmother as she feared he would become another statistic as crack cocaine use became rampant in his town. D-Von Dudley first watched professional wrestling when he was seven. He saw…

There is a false honor attached to being “on the right side of history.” It has an ambiguous meaning that changes from person to person. Even if you are someone who helped make history for the right reasons, it does not guarantee that you will be remembered kindly by future generations. Such is the fate of Koko B. Ware. Like many of his critics today, promoters didn’t see the appeal in James Ware when he first started out. He was short and had the physique of any regular man you would pass on the street. The more brutal comments compared…

The old idiom tells us that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Terry Funk did not like people telling him what he could or could not do or calling him an “Old Idiom.” At fifty-five years old, the Funker was inevitably slowing down. But he was not going to stop until God Himself stopped him. Funk did not have this attitude going into April 13, 1997. Extreme Championship Wrestling was expecting a new beginning from their first-ever pay-per-view, Barely Legal. Funk was expecting it to be the end for him. He was prepared to end his career that…

We all have our opinions on who the greatest wrestler is. For the legends who get mentioned the most, that person was Terry Funk. Whether it was with his wrestling skills, his verbal skills, a steel chair, or a branding iron… he left his mark on anyone who stepped in the ring with him. One of wrestling’s proudest Texans was born in Hammond, Indiana. His father, Dory Funk, served with the U.S. Navy during World War II. After he returned from active service, the Funk family relocated to a ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Terry Funk – Making a Brand, and…