A problem with classic Stampede Wrestling...

Lately I've been watching a lot of classic Stampede wrestling I downloaded from xwt-classics.net (thanks again Kee! That site is AMAZING). The Stampede stuff is really, really good. Seeing Bret, Dynamite, Davey Boy, Anvil, Owen and even a bit of Pillman and Benoit at the beginning of their careers is truly incredible. Watching this stuff makes it very hard for me to sit through WWE and TNA programming because the Stampede stuff feels so spontaneous and unscripted.

However, there is one glaring, horrendous, hideous, god-f'ing-awful turd in the near perfect punchbowl that was Stampede Wrestling and.....

.... Ed Whalen be thy name.

For those of you not hip to Stampede History, Ed Whalen was the "play-by-play" man for Stampede's TV show. I put the term "play-by-play" in quotes because to describe Whalen in such a way feels almost blasphemous - akin to calling Batista "technically sound" or Marty Janetty "intelligent". Ed's "commentary" had me pining for Mike Adamle. At least Adamle TRIED to call the action.

Why am I being so hard on the late Ed Whalen, a man that makes Stampede fans all misty-eyed when his name is mentioned? Here is a detailed analysis of Ed's style of calling a match; which, if hell truly exists, I'll be listening to for eternity.

1) Repeat the names of the competing wrestlers over and over and over in case the audience has forgotten who they are in the five seconds since he last said, "Bret Hart and the Dynamite Kid, battling it out."

2) Repeat the time limit set for a match, how much time is remaining and how much has expired over and over and over again. "This match has a one-hour time limit. 35 minutes expired, 25 minutes remaining." One minute later: "This match has a one-hour time limit. 36 minutes expired, 24 minutes remaining." Thank you, Big Ben.

3) Tell us the name of the referee approximately 17,000 times. Did no one ever tell this guy that a good referee should be almost invisible in a match?

4) Should manager J.R. Foley appear anywhere near a camera, repeatedly remind us that he is from "Cesspool, England." Hilarity ensues. Yes, a true master of the pun was Sire Whalen.

5) If anyone in the audience so much as coughs, exclaim, "The crowd is going WILD!"

6) Do not, under any circumstances, use the names of moves/holds unless it's an abdominal stretch - which in Whalen-speak is known simply as an "abdominal". All other moves (suplex, body slam, forearm, aerial maneuvers) are known as one of the following, used interchangeably: "Nice move", "What a move" or (God help us) "Bango!"

7) Any action (chain wrestling, a run-in) which may excite fans should be commentated with, "Look out!" Nothing else, just "Look out!"

8) When in doubt, utilize LOOOOOOONG lapses of silence.

And finally, what may be Ed's most unforgivable sin:

9) A great, exciting match is always referred to as (like J.R.'s legendary "Slobberknocker") a "Ring a ding dong dandy!"

Yes, you read that right. Do not adjust your monitor. He actually said, "That match between Bret Hart and The Dynamite Kid was a real ring a ding dong dandy."

Were there just no other announcers available in Canada? What in the blue fuck was Stu Hart thinking? Thank you for your time. : )

LMAO I know what you mean. I have some of that footage. I think when most of it came out he was years past his prime, but even then lol

I was surprised to see him after the praise given in Bret Hart's book.

I think it was just a case of a local veteran and friend of the family that they threw out there. Stampede was semi-successful and known for obviously all the Hart Dungeon greats, but it wasn't as big as people made it out to be during its era. They had rags for ring ropes lol.

At least Diana Hart was honest about Ed in her book. She basically said outright that he sucked.

Ed apparently went on to be a successful pro hockey commentator. He was also a HUGE mark, even though he worked in the business. Not "mark" in the good way but "mark" in the bad way in that he thought it was real and didn't understand that guys like Abdullah and Bad News were doing their jobs (i.e. building heat). He thought they were REALLY trying to kill the Harts or something, lol.

Oh right, I thought he'd wrestled or something.

That young Dynamite Kid and Bulldog stuff is golden. It's sad to see such a pair of good looking, well toned young guys turn out the way they did. Two people that should be national heroes over here are virtually forgotten.

x2, dude.

They should always be two people you Brits can look at with pride, regardless of what happened in the end. I've always kind of felt that Davey gets unfairly overshadowed by Dynamite (and Bret sometimes), like an afterthought or something. Dynamite is, arguably, the greatest pound-for-pound "worker" of all time but Davey was no slouch, either. Watching that Stampede stuff has really brought it home to me how good he was, even in the beginning.