About this WWF 1980s pro wrestling blog
Longtime fan and journalist Scott Wallask writes about growing up watching WWF pro wrestling in the 1980s and getting balcony seats each month for the old Boston Garden matches, while also comparing current WWE plotlines to old-school angles.
Wallask has previously written for the Camel Clutch Blog, and is also available to talk about the 1980s WWF scene for pro wrestling podcasts, interviews, and radio shows. Contact him by clicking here.
By day, he is a senior content manager at ZoomInfo, a software company that helps sales and marketing teams find the right customers at the best time through a combination of cutting-edge data and artificial intelligence.
Boston Garden Balcony 
I remember the night Bruno Sammartino was to wrestle Killer Kahn! Before the match Bruno was presented a trophy but Kahn interrupted the presentation! Is there any video footage PRO or Fan Cam available?
My fave match from the Boston Garden in the 80s was Moondog Spot beating Salvatore Bellomo, and the crowd cheered Spot.
I love to have the old tapes from Boston
Is anybody in the Boston area Try to buy old photos of The grand Wizard of wrestling What out is get up on That means is turban and his glasses I hope I spelled turban like probably not
Seeing I am now finally entering the new age era of Smart LED TV’s, I have been Netflixing all the old WWF Programming. In doing so I came across the Andre/Hogan match from WM 3 back in 1987. While watching this match and seeing how they set a new indoor attendance record of 93,173 I Googled whether or not this indoor attendance record still stood. To my amazement, the record was broken by the 2010 NBA All Star Game with a crowd of 108,713 at Dallas’ Cowboy Stadium. So WWF(E)’s attendance record stood for over 23 years. Any thoughts or ideas if WWE will try and break that record? Somehow I don’t see John Cena or CM Punk drawing any crowd of that magnitude.
A lot of insiders doubt the 93,173 figure was accurate to begin with. Check out the transcript of my interview with Dave Meltzer to read a lot more about the alleged attendance at Mania III: https://bostongardenbalcony.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/transcript-of-my-wrestlemania-iii-interview-with-the-observers-dave-meltzer/
Definitely it’s inaccurate. Probably more like 80,000.
But I guess like Andre, metaphorically, it’s the ‘BIGGEST’.
One thing that’s completely discounted when comparing any figure from the 80s to the ‘modern’ era, such as Austin T-Shirts vs Hogan’s shirts, kids such as myself, alot of them, had no idea where to get these shirts. They never had them at major department stores like they do everywhere at a Walmart, or other department store today. In the 80s, it was still quasi “Sell off the back of a truck”.
Or even try to buy tickets to an event was a mystery (my parents were immigrants, had no credit card). I would have killed to go to WM3 as many others I knew too. But again, the whole process was alot tougher than the modern era, where the MACHINERY of the process is much more efficient and widespread. Overseas, I’m sure they got absolutely nothing. So you can hypothetically argue, if you adjust for industry ‘inflation’, WM3 really would have been the biggest thing ever.
Regarding the August 15 comment about getting tickets and T-shirts back in the day, I wrote a post inspired by these comments elsewhere on the blog: https://bostongardenbalcony.wordpress.com/2014/11/01/how-wrestling-fans-got-wwe-house-show-tickets-in-the-late-1980s/
and what about ron cumberledge? someona has videos about ron cumberledge?
My God, Ron Cumberledge — there’s a guy I haven’t thought about in probably decades. I can’t remember whether he was from the 80s or 90s for the WWF. There are actually quite a few clips of him online if you search for his name.
Great job with the blog. Let me know if you ever need any aother input in regards to 1980’s Pro Wrestling at Tha Gaahhdin!
Good blog you have going.
Great blog, brings back memories.