One of my loyal readers contacted me to thank me for creating this blog, and to let me know about his own obsession with pro wrestling which began in his childhood. He is actually able to identify the very first match that turned him on and made him into a lifelong wrestling addict. It was muscle-heel Don Muraco vs. 19-year-old Barry Windham. The match aired on Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF) in early 1980 and is also available on YouTube.
Muraco looks swole and masculine, sporting a magnificent beard. Windham, on the other hand, is rail-thin, smooth-chested, and vulnerable, definitely relatable to skinny lads like I was, and my reader was, in 1980. Muraco proceeds to just decimate the rookie, whipping his skinny ass out of the ring, then blasting his head into the ringside barrier to bloody him. No mercy! He puts the kid away using the dreaded Asiatic Spike to his neck.
Gordon Solie makes it all seem real by acting outraged over this assault and hyper-worried about the youngster's injured neck as they carry him out on a stretcher. It's no wonder this match got my fellow wrestling fan all excited -- it checks many of the classic wrestleporn boxes:
Cute, young, overwhelmed rookie.
A brutal power-house with huge muscles in control.
Putting the youngster out cold.
Boytoy humiliated and dominated.
A sadistic, frightening scene ending in apparent injury. Bring out the stretcher!
Does anybody else want to tell us about the first match that got them excited for pro wrestling?