Jim Cornette Looks At Houston Wrestling Payoffs 

"We made so much money, we paid the SCAFFOLD $500 bucks". That's hilarious!

As a younger wrestling fan at 17 years old, this is absolutely fascinating information. This is one of the main reasons why I listen to the podcast, I hope a lot of other younger fans feel the same way.

Corny is 100 percent correct. Paul Boesch was an institution in the Houston area. Even if you didn't watch wrestling, you knew who he was and I can't think of any negative publicity around him. I've got fond memories of my Dad taking me & my brothers to the Sam Houston Colosseum. Most memorable was a certain scaffold match featuring a young heel manager who we all hated :)

"It aint Mil Mascaras. It aint El Santo. It aint even Mr. Wrestling 2 ... Its Excalibur" - Jim Cornette

Ah, I understand why Bret Hart always enjoyed Houston because Paul Boesch introduced his parents to each other. I don't think either needed much convincing, Stu and Helen Hart were very attractive people in their twenties.

I’m from Houston n my dad used to go to the Houston Colosseum, I usually hate when people say this but DAMN was I born in the wrong generation, we were a wrestling Mecca from the sounds of it

Great job guys! This was incredible! The history is appreciated. The biggest Jim Cornette fan since circa 1984.

I have never watched Houston wrestling and I might never BUT I am _all in_ on Corny talking for ninety minutes about this promotion.

Valentine was a heel in much the same way the Road Warriors were heels .He never cheated nor retreated , he just kicked babyface ass .

The referee replying to the leapfrog question was funny.

I love when y’all talk about Houston wrestling. It takes me back as a boy with my family.

I've visited many great wrestling cities, but Houston is on a different level.

My dad and brothers watched Houston Wrestling on Channel 39, now the WB 39 every Saturday night or Sunday morning. Mr. Boesch spoke at our high school in the late 80s and everyone listened and gave him a standing ovation. Will never be a time like growing up in the 80s as a kid to teenager.

Paul Boesch once famously called VK McMahon "the man who killed the handshake" meaning unless you had a literal contract, Vince didn't take people at their word and convinced others to break theirs. #threecountcommentaries

In the 70s and 80s air-travel was still in the hangover era of the premium travel age. It was the yuppies who saw that there was a mass-market of middle class people who wanted to fly. This was when they added the 3rd seat, fired the chefs and replaced the pretty blondes with minimum wage slaves and successfully froze pilot salaries and created "surge" pricing models. Why air travel is misery incarnate, but cheaper.

For all the people complaining about the length of this video, I wish it was longer and I am going to watch it a second time for another stroll down memory lane.

Imagine if a wrestler asked for the gate of Raw or Smackdown. Vince and Bruce would probably release him the next day.

One of the best heels in the business is ole Corny!! You were a huge part of my childhood and listening to all these stories takes me back to when wrestling was great!! Wish you could run another promotion Jim.. It would be the best in business

It's sweet to hear the inner workings of what was essentially my second home growing here in houston,God bless Mr.Boesch and 1919 Caroline/TV39.

I'm here to find out how Jim worked Mighty Mouse in and I was not disappointed

"The History of Professional Wrestling" as told by Jim Cornette illustrated by Travis Heckel Please make it happen. I need that book. Please. 🙏🏼

I grew up in Northeast, watching the WWF in the 80's as well as WCCW & UWF (Bill Watts) on channel U68. As time goes on & listen to Cornette's stories, I yearn for the territories & variety of styles wrestling.

..is there ANYTHING that Jim Cornette does NOT know about professional wrestling?...he lives it.

Don Serrano's son, Hector, lives in the Pasadena area. My family knows him personally.

As a kid I remember going to these shows at the Coliseum and watch on Channel 39! Jim use to call Paul : Big Ear Paul Boesch during shoots! The best times 🤣😂🤣

These are the great episodes the inside story

"There was a all night gas station up.." lol what a dig

I'm from Houston Texas and Paul Boesch was cool! I remember watching wrestling here in Houston on channel 39. Channel 39 carried Houston wrestling then WWF Superstars and if I'm correct Fox carried WCW Pro. Houston is a big wrestling city. Still is. But not me, I stopped watching in 2008 when that computer became General Manager.

I concur with James, my Uncle in Friendswood, who was a respected grain commodities broker and a mild fan of wrestling respected Paul Bosch and spoke of him with great admiration. I grew up on Mid-South rasslin and this piece brings me back to my youth.

If you received this from the Texas Athletic Commission, you should probably be able to get the same documents from New York State and Pennsylvania because they also required wrestling to be sanctioned and supervised. My assumption is that these are public documents because these are official state entities.

Hearing Cornette complain about his payoff at the "Last Stampede" in Houston that drew $100,000 makes Michael Hayes sound justified about his poor payoff working with JYD in the Louisiana Superdome back in 1980.

This was absolutely fascinating. I enjoyed this segment very much.

It's fun to hear Corny run down the modern product, but I love when he does these historical deep dives. My favorite thing though, is when he fantasy books an angle on the fly . He sells the hell out of it, and makes me wish I could see it play out irl.

Just curious, aside from bringing in champions from the NWA and the AWA did Houston ever have their own regional champion's? Forgive me And asking but I always wondered

Vince's enabler Bruce now has most of Paul Boesch Houston Wrestling documents, books and ECT

I have definitely seen footage from Southwest of Greg Valentine being managed by his dad around 1980. Johnny didn't look very mobile as I recall. I think he was having to use a cane to stand.

Houston wrestling was legendary I remember those Bosh commercials with the diamond earring lol

I grew up in the 70's .. Friday nights in the Sam Houston Colosseum was the Best

Reed never went "baby face" like that it's just the 2 Hacksaws Reed and Duggan would team up and were undefeated as a tag team Ps thats the story we were told

Half an hour in and hearing the detail of the payoffs is super interesting. Thought Wrestlers were struggling then too. Maybe jobbers or underneath talent would have found it harder to survive in such climates but yeah this is hitting the nail on head so far.

I only knew who Paul boesch because my brother and uncle always talked about how so many WWF talent in late 80s used to be on Paul boesch wrestling.

Cornette deserves a few statues in his local town as a tribute of his greatness. Such as historian , we truly appreciate you guys.

Mike, the Biggun. 🤣What a name!

Good ole Percy Cornette an unsung hero of wrestling.

🤘HOUSTON TEXAS REPRESENT🤘

I saw Jose Lothario have a great match with Black Gordman . Two weeks later I saw them have the exact same match .

I wonder what a gas station sandwich back then tasted like.

Would love to hear more classic wrestling and less about the current product

Mil was about a bill.

Allie Recks had a very good debut on Ring of Honor. Check it out.

Houston Wrestling created Wrestling legends!

Troy Graham was in shape when he and Pork Chop were Bruise Brothers . It was the only time I have ever seen him in shape .

Even tho I grew up in Texas I never saw or heard much about Houston wrestling, Even the magazines like Pro Wrestling Illustrated didn't give it much coverage

I LOVE this stuff right here ! This is the second time listening after the first time it aired !

I luv hearing about the different gates from the past. It was genius for Cornette to keep some of this information💯

@1:00:25 Brian is right about how there's not many scaffold matches anymore. Once you've seen one scaffold match, you've seen them all.

This one was a goody. Wish we can get a bit more on Mil Mascaras and his time with some of the top guys here in America

In 1978 Jose Lothario would draw houses in Misdsouth . By 1983 he was past it .

1:00:20 Well New Jack "tried" to kill Grimes if that counts

More of this, less AEW/WWE/NXT etc.

Lmao September 9 1984 i was 2!!! Lol

Me and my old man would watch Houston wrestling back when I was a kid. Those were some good memories and one of the few overlaps in interest that me and my dad had. Paul Boesch was a classic and those I.W. Marks commercials are burned in my memory.

I hope the next video they do is about how much the wrestlers use to spend on food on the road.

Back when wrestling was great. Now they get major money to do dives that almost kill them and does nothing for us true wrestling fans

Listened on Spotify, and this was fascinating!

Man, I wish I could've gone to see Houston wrestling in person. My Dad was a big fan and always talked about it.

Did Boesch have to get a permit for each wrestling show at the Sam Houston Coliseum? Did he have a permit to run exhibitions or competitions?

Purple Haze Mark Lewin????

By comparison, I have been listening to a lot of Ron Fuller's podcasts where he talks about his attendance at his shows. In 1979, Ron Fuller ran four cities weekly---- Knoxville, Mobile, Montgomery and Doltham. He would have been very disappointed if any of those cities had an attendance below 3000 fans, and moderately disappointed with anything below 3500 with the possible exception of Doltham. I find it a little surprising that during the same year of 1979, a big market like Houston was also drawing below 3000 fans. Houston was probably bigger than Knoxville, Montgomery and Mobile combined. For them to be drawing that low must have been a really bad month for them.

As I am now finding out Houston pretty much had everyone. Back to The 1920s.B.W.

This is so great!! I've been listening to this nightly for months!! I grew on Mid South during it's hey day 1980-84 getting to see matches both in New Orleans and in Chalmette. To hear these pays outs and the stories as y'all pull the curtain back on how Paul brought in JYD and the rest of mid south to Houston is great!!

Jim and Brian are the best

52:38 great blues song

Scaffold matches are desperation matches . Same as barbed wire matches that The Fantastics and The Sheepherders had in UWF . You may as well drink nitro and light a match . Its great but only once .

I loved Barry Darsow too but he did not draw one ass in those seats .

Lol, great thumbnail.

Great segment .

Jim makes everything interesting to listen to

I think I remember seeing a scaffold match on bonus feature of an ECW DVD I think, and from what I saw, it was Tommy Dreamer and "Prime Time" Brian Lee and let me tell ya, that scaffold wasn't structured well AT ALL. I mean that thing was rocking back and forth. As the saying goes, once you've seen one scaffold match or one hair vs hair, mask vs hair, mask vs mask, you've seen all of them.

Managers making "main event" money is absurd 😂

Donny OWENS WAS A GREAT 2ND STORY GUY-- BILLY WATTS COULD BYPASS ANY ELECTRONIC DEVICE STUART HART WAS A GREAT WHEELMAN

I was in Louisiana so I did not want to see Midsouth wrestling in Houston nor on TBS ....I was getting less diversity . I liked when Boesch used Texas talent from San Antonio and Dallas with AWA and wWA talent coming in for shots

I'm from Virginia and have seen a lil Houston wrestling,I'd like to know more about when Boesh decided to have their own world champion and Adrian Adonis won the tournament.

If you like this, you should look for the Kayfabe Commentaries Back to the Territories Documentary where Corny is chats to Bruce Prichard about Houston Wrestling

Love this

Amazing concept... wrestlers get paid based on the amount of money paid at the gate. Make people have an interest financially in drawing a big house.

Every Saturday night and Sunday morning... Me and my grandma watching wrestling

The Territory Days were the best hands down

The figures don't really translate into modern money even with the inflation calculator. 12k in the 70s is about 40k now, but that 12k would buy a house back then.

I spent many a Friday night at the Sam Houston Coliseum watching Houston Wrestling.

And then they went back up right. Good to hear the bookers were pretty fair with the payoffs.

I love episodes like this. Listening to info like this gives you a better understanding of the business

Houston rasslin' ran by Paul Boesch had many top names come thru. Freebirds, Jake Roberts, Kamala, Ric Flair, JYD, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Andre the Giant, Bruiser Brody list goes on & on

Tiger Conway Twitty jr 😮lol

Didn't Frank Dalton get beaten so badly by The HellsAngels that he had to get his lower leg amputated ? Didn't he and Don Fargo work as The Hells Angels ?

I need a badass Tiger Mask action figure

I FEEL YOU JIM

1:18:52 🤣🤣

Mike the Biggun’ ??? Have to look that guy up

More of this. I'm tired of wrestling podcasts being about current wrestling or 90's wrestling.