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Falls
Count Anywhere
10-16-09
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Trolls
just wanna have fun.
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Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere!
My name is Chris and they’re not booing, they’re
saying ‘Lou, Lou.”
If you made a list of who drew the
most money in the 1980s, there wouldn’t be a lot of
surprises. Junkyard Dog, Ted DiBiase, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper,
Paul Orndorff and the biggest of them all, Hulk Hogan. But
if you made a list of the most famous, the names that folks
who didn’t even watch wrestling knew, then there’s
a name that might have slipped your mind.
Captain Lou Albano.
Captain
Lou had been around wrestling since the 1950s. He was a
wrestler first, drew some but not like a superstar, but
he was good on the mic. When he started slowing down, he
became a manager and that led to big things. Over the last
decade or so, Albano had been having health problems, dropped
a lot of weight, and it was reported by last week’s
Observer that he had been moved to Hospice care. He passed
away on the 14th at the age of 76.
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The
Captain in his heyday.
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Albano’s
gimmick was that he was the manager of champions. Specifically
of tag team champions. He would manage whoever the heel
team of the moment was. The Yukon Lumberjacks, the Blackjacks,
even Mr. Fuji and whoever his partner of the moment was.
This made him a recognized part of the WWWF scene, especially
in the 1970s. The late 70s and early 80s featured the trio
of managers, Captain Lou, Classy Freddy Blassie and The
Grand Wizard (Ernie Roth) all as the big name heel managers.
It
was a great time. Blassie would usually manage whoever was
going to be going up against the Heavyweight champion (including
a heel Hulk Hogan) and the wizard would get the guys like
Stasiak and Billy Graham. Albano was the guy who got the
Tag Teams, including the Wild Samoans.
He managed at least 16 different
tag team champions, including the British Bulldogs and his
final champions, The Headshrinkers in 1994. He was probably
the most significant manager in the history of Northeastern
Wrestling, and one of the greatest talkers ever.
His
fame didn’t come from wrestling. It came from showing
up in two of the most famous music videos of the 1980s.
Cyndi Lauper used Capt. Lou in her video "Girls Just
Wanna Have Fun", "She Bop", "Time After
Time" and "Goonies Are Good Enough".
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| Oh,
daddy dear, you know
you're still number one... |
That
led to him becoming a much bigger star. The story goes that
the two sat next to each other on an airplane and Lou impressed
Cyndi with his legendary stories. Albano wasn’t drawing
money in wrestling himself, but he was deeply ingrained
in the building of the heels in the WWF and became huge
in the popular culture of the 1980s. His was the most popular
manager figure in the LJN series of WWF figures and he was
the only manager featured in the Hulk Hogan’s
Rock ‘n Wrestlin’ cartoon series of the
mid-80s.
He
would later star as the live-action Mario in Super Mario
Brothers Supershow. He made appearances on Regis
& Kathy Lee, Hollywood Squares and various other
interview programs. He was one of the great talkers, and
whenever someone wanted a goofy interview about wrestling,
he’d be the guy who would gladly do that for them.
The image of the fat guy with the
rubber bands on his face wearing the Hawaiian shirt is one
of the most recognizable of the highest-profile period in
the history of professional wrestling.
In other news, the loss by Kimbo
Slice to Ray Nelson on the Ultimate Fighter led to the highest
rating ever for that show and even beat RAW’s rating.
That’s a big deal. I’m betting that even after
all the bluster from Dana White, Kimbo’ll be signed
to a contract after the season is over. There’s just
too much money in him.
CM
Punk is in the doghouse. Multiple folks are reporting that
Punk’s attitude isn’t the best, and part of
that is that he’s in a different generation than a
lot of the backstage leadership, especially The Undertaker.
He was pretty much buried at the last PPV, but they sort
of painted themselves into a corner on that one.
There’s word that Booker T
is unhappy with TNA and is looking at getting back into
the WWE after his contract runs out. It would probably be
a good move for him, especially with the depth problems
that they’ve got right now. Kurt Angle is also hurting,
but they’ve put a lot of faith into him, so he’ll
work through. Rhaka Khan is also gone from TNA.
OK,
that’s all for this edition!
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