Bill Watts keeping kayfabe alive: Wrestling is Real!

Vintage 1985 news story interviewing Cowboy Bill Watts about the John Stossel story with Eddy Mansfield exposing Pro Wrestling.
#vintagetv #retronews #prowrestling #kayfabe #billwatts
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[@MrDoneboy]

Mansfield was a mark for the media, who was a failed pro wrestler. Bill Watts was a legitimate tough SOB!

[@impalaman9707]

What Bill Watts said made a lot of sense to me: Why would millions of people pay to see something they knew was phony?

[@impalaman9707]

@Lyles music If people wanted entertainment back then, they would have gone to the circus or see a movie or a play. The majority of people, myself included, went to see wrestling because we were told what we were seeing was a legitimate athletic competition. Did it have drama? Sure. But what sport doesn't?

[@dante040]

Do you think everyone who pays to see a magician thinks they witnessed a woman cut in half?

[@impalaman9707]

@@dante040 Magic shows are for entertainment and never advertised themselves as a legitimate sporting event. Big difference

[@JoypadDivison]

I don't get why they made it look so phony. Someone like Bill Watts should have kept people from doing everything that's bullshit. Even if you look at WWWF there was no stomping of the feet when you punched a guy. But then a few years later when it was WWF _everyone_ was doing it. I think they shouldn't have done any tossing of guys against the rope. It's illogical and stupid, you can run towards someone and do all those moves and make it make decent sense. Enough so that a ten year old kid doesn't realize it's all bullshit anyway.

[@YogsenForfoth]

I could watch Stossel get smacked by Doctor D all day long! 😂

[@gordonirvine726]

It never gets old for some reason. If anything it gets more satisfying each time you watch it.

[@MrDoneboy]

Me too, my friend!

[@chrisl5038]

Saw Dr. D the other day in Dyersburg TN in his truck

[@YogsenForfoth]

@@chrisl5038 Nice! I wonder if he was looking for a bounty. 😂

[@NickGerse]

Great gem here!!! I’ve never seen this

[@rosario508]

Bill’s wife is easy on the eyes

[@deanburrows8355]

Fake and fake champs

[@Coodeville]

The blood is real too. No self respecting pro would ever fake that

[@r0ckstar666]

Dr. D proved wrestling is real

[@michaelrubin9547]

Alot of it is real

[@MrDoneboy]

Especially the injuries!

[@HH-pk2wh]

kayfabe all day

[@battlestarmarc]

Surprised Watts didn't use Schultz in 1985 after 20/20.

[@Cobra37061]

Watts should have brought Dr. D to Mid-South after this and pushed the hell out of him. If not Watts, then Fritz, Verne, or Crockett. Schultz did do a short run in Memphis after this teaming with Randy Savage.

[@tmage23]

Mid South already had a Dr. Death. Steve Williams was a big star in the territory at the time

[@grawakendream8980]

some people on the inside tried to play coy with the media. watts was like absolutely happy to lie through his teeth, has a christian evangelist feel to it

[@gossamer1234]

Gotta do what's best for business

[@grawakendream8980]

@@gossamer1234 he was out of business in a matter of months

[@redmanr5522]

@@grawakendream8980 true, and I bet all the liberals with their safe spaces and political correctness would say, as he should be!

[@redmanr5522]

this is why the Cleveland Indians are now Guardians, and Washington Redskins are now Commanders, and we have Joe Biden as president, with record high inflation and record high gas prices in summer 2022. because the vast majority hates people like Bill Watts & Donald Trump, because they got their feelings hurt and everything has to be catered to them and be molly coddled by society, it makes me sick.

[@grawakendream8980]

@@redmanr5522 what are you saying lol

[@timtime9167]

John Stossel said, well shit I was thinking it was fake.

[@grawakendream8980]

he got slaped. but it's still fake

[@timtime9167]

@grawakendream8980 wrestling is definitely all worked, but those guys are rough cut dudes, especially back then.

[@grawakendream8980]

in his defense he was coming to a level of exposure and transparency the business hadn't faced before at that time, in an interview such as this. he shot, as the french say, poorly @@timtime9167

[@vinnymac14]

what was Stossel’s problem

[@MrDoneboy]

He got Bitch-Slapped by Dr. D., on national TV!

[@clopper3753]

It's still real to me damn it!!! uuhh uh uh....

[@Mr.Murphy2]

1:48 Did Bill Watts just admit the booker determines who does what, where, and when?

[@gossamer1234]

The "book me" line? He could play it off as booking wrestlers for shows. Not necessarily the outcome

[@chrisruth7057]

​@@gossamer1234Iv been a wrestling fan for 44 years & wrestling is predetermined most of the time yes but definitely not fake no way but you got to know who going to who going to win before the match starts I always knew that when I was a very young kid in 1980

[@TheWinston86]

He takes his profession seriously. I admire him

[@hrmarkley9758]

Everyone sort of knew it was fake.....even though because of kayfabe wrestlers wouldn't admit it

[@gossamer1234]

Folks weren't as cynical then. Many believed

[@grawakendream8980]

it's was obscured back then

[@MrDoneboy]

You still had to take the bumps!

[@hrmarkley9758]

@@MrDoneboy -No doubt!!!! Tough, tough, business

[@dk-zk2vw]

So handsome

[@TranceMasterJack]

Y thank you.

[@michaelrubin9547]

It's not fake