New photos of the Ultimate Warrior, Paul Orndorff, and others ’80s WWF stars
The Slam! sports site ran a cool photo slideshow from the Legends of the Ring 14 convention, which took place earlier this month in New Jersey.
Among the great current photos you can see of 1980s WWF stars are:
- Ultimate Warrior (who’d you’d probably never recognize these days without his face paint)
- “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff, who has happily reported beating cancer
- Virgil, who looks just about the same as he used to
- A classic, old-school wrestling pose by Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and Brutus Beefcake, who held the WWF Tag Team Titles before Beefcake’s barber days
- Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka
- Women wrestlers Lelani Kai and Judy Martin
To see the ful gallery, click this link to the Slam! site and then look for the Ultimate Warrior shot by scrolling down the left column.
Boston Garden Balcony 
Mascaras hasn’t changed much ….
No love for Itsuki Yamazaki, one of the Jumping Bomb Angels?
Actually, those house show matches with the Jumping Bomb Angels were really good, especially considering the decade they occurred in.
Has anyone figured out who the ring announcer was for the WWF back in the 1980’s at The Boston Garden? WWE Classics has a classic 1985 wrestling card from The Boston Garden. The late Gorilla Monsoon and Lord Alfred Hayes do the commentary but they never mention the ring announce by name. I have watched it a few times now and nothing….let me know, thanks.
Someone left a comment for me earlier this month that the Boston Garden ring announcer’s first name was Frank, which sounds right to me.
https://bostongardenbalcony.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/memories-of-wwf-shows-in-boston-squash-matches-black-barricades-and-orange-line-mayhem/
The ring announcer was Frank Chrzanowski. He did announcing also at house shows in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut. His day job was a chemistry teacher at Platt High School in Meriden, Connecticut. Here’s part of a 1999 story in the Record Journal of how he got his ring announcing job:
Pro wrestling heads for Platt High School Friday
Author: Ralph Hohman, Record-Journal staff
Publish Date: May 13, 1999
Word Count: 495
Document ID: 10F54C6F27B81606
MERIDEN — Back in 1978, Frank Chrzanowski just wanted to raise some money for a class he was adviser to at Platt High School. He wound up with a second career.
The Stamford-based World Wrestling Federation put on a show at Platt, and Chrzanowski, a longtime wrestling fan, did the honors behind the microphone. WWF head Vince McMahon was at the show, too, along with other representatives of his growing wrestling empire. One of them offered Chrzanowski a job.
Thank you “anonmyous poster” above for your information about Frank Chrzanowski. I written more about this in a new post: https://bostongardenbalcony.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/finally-the-mystery-is-solved-about-who-the-ring-announcer-was-for-wwf-house-shows-at-the-old-boston-garden/
Its always a good thing when you see wrestlers from previous era’s give back to the fans, such as the Legends of the Ring 14 convention. Mr. Wonderful does look a little weary. I can only hope and pray that he gets healthy. Jeez, looking at the pic of The Hammer, Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake, I strongly think they could get in the ring at this very moment. Good Stuff!