The death of Captain Lou Albano won't have any mockery coming from this general direction. As many people who've read my emails or what not throughout the years, is that you know I love a good 80s wrestling reference. It's kind of like a Mike Seaver Perm-Mullet reference, or anything related to a funny face on a baseball card I had when I was a kid, shit, I even had Captain Lou Albano's wrestling card, and it read, "They took my reindeer!" Naturally, the Captain was dressed up Santa Claus.
I loved him for many reasons, and like most people, the number one reason was that he wore rubber bands on his face. How can you not like someone who wears rubber bands? In my wrasslin' viewin' days, my favorite wrestlers were a tag team called the USA Express which featured Barry Whyndam and Mike Rotundo. I was an all-american kid, and I loved anything that represented America, and when they're rivals were the villains, the Russian Nikolai Volkoff and Iranian, Iron Shiek, how can you not love Les Etats-Unis?
Somewhere tonight, those 4 wrestlers are all quite sad (that is, if they're all still alive, you know how it is for wrestlers). The good thing though is that Captain Lou Albano lived this long. He provided me with many memories as a child, most notably when he won the title of "Best Manager." How you ask? Well, the "fans" apparently voted for noted heal, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, and Hillbilly Jim came in 2nd with Captain Lou in 3rd. Upon hearing the news that Heenan won, Hillbilly Jim gave all of his votes to Captain Lou, so they gave the award to him, and then I believe he was greeted with a chain to the back by either Mr. Fuji, Slick or Jimmy "The Mouth of the South" Hart.
Others may remember his appearance in that Cyndi Lauper video. When Cyndi had her brief stint as a wrestler, he was her manager. Or something like that. I don't remember this too clearly aside from him being in the video and Wendi Richter somehow being involved.
Lastly, the other day I was talking about that old "Wrestling" album from the 80s where all the wrestlers sang, "Land of a 1000 Dances" and then some had their own songs. Captain Lou had a song, and I'm sure it wasn't the greatest, but it still rings in my head to this day.
And when I'm on the scene everything's all right
Captain Lou
Captain Lou
Al Bano
I believe he also managed George "The Animal" Steel for awhile, and George would often scream, "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU" and "CAPTAIN" which were the only two words he ever said, and this would excite the crowd.
I'm going to end here, because these are all natural memories. I could probably go to wikipedia and recollect more, but why. Captain Lou Albano was a great childhood memory, and he will always be. Captain Lou, I drink my first glass of wine tonight for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment