I know what you are thinking, they are thousands of wrestlers that have never appeared in the WWWF, WWF, and WWE in their careers. I'm going to focus on those that had significant territory runs in the 1970's and 1980's but never found their way into a New York ring. While Kerry Von Erich had a run as the Texas Tornado, his brothers David and Kevin Von Erich had matches at Madison Square Garden. I wrote about it in my post from 2017 They Wrestled in The WWE?
The Midnight Express
"Loverboy" Dennis Condrey, "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton, and "Sweet" Stan Lane
Bobby Eaton was the inspiration for this blog post. Bobby debuted in 1976 and wrestled a full time schedule through early 2000 and continued to wrestle regularly until his last match in 2016. He was a member of the Midnight Express from 1983 through last 1990. He held multiple tag team championships and a few singles titles. He was signed by the WWF as a trainer in their developmental territories of Power Pro Wrestling, Heartland Wrestling Association and Ohio Valley Wrestling, and even had matches, but never in a WWE ring.
Dennis Condrey began his wrestling career in 1973, wrestling full time until 1989, returning to ring in 2004 wrestling periodically through 2011. An original member of the Midnight Express in 1980, Eaton joined the team in 1983, competing in the infamous Starrcade 86 Skywalkers match. He left the team in 1987. He won numerous regional tag team championships and is thought of one of the best tag team wrestlers.
Stan Lane debuted in 1978 and first retired from the ring in 1993. Returning to the ring in 1999 wrestling periodically through 2008. Lane was a member of numerous successful tag teams including The Fabulous Ones, The Midnight Express, and The Heavenly Bodies winning numerous tag team championships including NWA World and Unites States tag team championship. Stan Lane was a member of the WWF broadcast team from 1993 - 1995 providing color commentary on WWF Superstars and WWF Wrestling Challenge, and doing voice over work for Coliseum Home Video exclusive matches. However, never competed in a WWF ring.
Jimmy "Jam" Garvin
Jimmy Garvin began his wrestling career in 1968 wrestling steady through 1994 and having his final match in 2000. For much of his career he was accompanied to the ring by his wife Precious. He became a member of the Fabulous Freebirds in 1989 capturing the NWA & WCW World and WCW United States Tag Team Championships with Michael Hayes. He competed in numerous territories including Florida, Georgia, Jim Crockett Promotions, World Class, the AWA and more. Even though he never competed in a WWE ring he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2016 as a member of the Fabulous Freebirds.
Ole Anderson
Proud member of the Minnesota Wrecking Crew and one of the original members of the Four Horsemen, Ole began his career in 1967 tour the territories of the NWA and competing in the AWA. Granted when Vince Jr. bought the WWF and began his expansion in 1983 and how he "stole" Georgia Championship Wrestling from him there was no way he was going to compete for McMahon. However there was plenty of time for him to wrestle for Vince Sr. and he did not. Ole held numerous tag team championships, and is a legendary figure in the NWA.
Nikita Koloff
The Russian Nightmare wrestled from 1984 - 1992, was a top attraction in Jim Crockett Promotions as the heel in his feud with Magnum TA and their best of 7 series for the NWA United States Championship, and later a babyface teaming with Dusty Rhodes after Magnum's career ending car crash. Koloff also a multi-time NWA World Tag Team Champion. Even though he never competed in the WWE he is recognized in their United States Championship title history.
Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page. You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book the 2024 Limitless Wrestling Almanac, or any of my other books.
For the fourth time Canaan and I headed to the Province of Quebec for our Canada Hockey Adventure, for the 2nd time we added pro wrestling to the journey. Our last adventure was in December 2024 and I wrote about it here: Quebec Wrestling Adventure.
Friday the 9th we headed north to taking Route 201 through the Sandy Bay Township border crossing into Quebec. In Jackman we had to stop for the train, I filmed a video for Wesley, didn't realize it was going to be over 4 minutes!!
We stopped in Saint-Georges to get some cash from the ATM and have lunch at Harvey's. It's a Canadian fast food burger chain, I ate at one before with Kate in Moncton, New Brunswick and we were not a fan. I thought it was due for another try and I was wrong. The onion rings were great, but the burgers remained subpar....but edible.
Our next stop was in Quebec City at the offices of Spira and independent movie distribution company so I could pick up a copy of the wrestling documentary Celles Qui Luttent about French Canadian woman wrestlers Lufisto, Loue O'Farrell and Azaelle. I wanted to watch this for quite awhile, but I couldn't order it because with the tariffs shipping alone was $49. I messaged them in advance and they said I could come to the office and pick up a copy.
We departed Quebec City for a 200km drive north to the village of Jonquiere in the Saguenay area. We had to drive through the Laurentides Wildlife Reserve which had no exits for a very large chunk of it and only a rest stop in the middle with gas, store, and restaurant. While we hit light snow in Quebec City it was snowing light crazy through the high point.
We checked into our inn, Auberge Des Deux Tours, which is located on the back side of a restaurant. It was very basic, two full beds and a bathroom, which is all we need. We went to the mall and had A & W for dinner and Canaan picked up some earbuds at Best Buy.
Our reason for going up here was to check out the LNAH team the Jonquiere Marquis they played National de Québec, one of two of the 2024 expansion teams. We had seen the Marquis before, but this was the first time seeing National.
Another very cool old arena Palais des Sports de Saguenay, built on 1946, renovated in 2005. It was a packed out with a very raucous crowd that is very typical of this league. Nationals have a player with a great name! Marquis dominated winning 7 - 2. They out played Nationals at every turn. I has some subpar poutine at the game but it looked good.
The church across the street from the Inn was all lit up when we got back to the room. It was very pretty.
Saturday morning we packed up and hit the road about 1030 for the journey south back to Quebec City. The journey back through the Wildlife reserve it wasn't snowing, but the road quite slushy at times. We stopped at that rest stop again where they specialize in selling bite size sausages wrapped in bacon, they were tremendous! The van got filthy on the drive so far, so we hit a carwash, it was really bad.
We had some time to kill before we could check into the hotel, so we hit the mall, Galeries de la Capitale which features Mega Parc and indoor amusement park with ice rink. I went here when I was a senior in high school during out French Club trip in February 1997, 29 years ago, so it was cool to see again.
The indoor roller coaster track was still there, but it doesn't appear as though they use it anymore. There used to be a hockey rink on the main floor as I recall a hockey tournament being played there when I was here in high school. There is still and ice rink, but it goes all around in a like a street course racetrack.
We has lunch at the mall, a smash burger place, are you seeing a pattern. The mall was disappointing to us and it didn't have any stores that we really care about. It was all clothing stores, mostly, a few kids stores, but it did have a physical media store, music and movies.
We got into the hotel, a much nicer room than last night, and the beds were a lot more comfortable. We relaxed in room and put the football game on.
We headed out to Old Quebec as I wanted to get a big bag of Quebec Blend popcorn from Mary's Popcorn Boutique. It's a mix of maple and cheddar popcorn. We headed over the Centre Horizon after to get parked, it's a small parking area and I wanted to make sure we got a spot. We watch the majority of Slap Shot in the van before heading into the venue. Doors opened at 7pm, with preshow at 730pm and live on IWTV at 8pm.
It was a great night of professional wrestling! North Shore Pro Wrestling has been running shows at the Centre Horizon as fat back as 2010, last time we had GA but this time I bought front row in advance. Once again the place was PACKED with fans with the seats sold out and standing room shoulder to shoulder. Let's get to the results:
January 10, 2026
Lutte NSPW: North Shore Pro Wrestling
Centre Horizon, Quebec City, QC
Pre-Show
Killshot: Bryan Colt & Elrick defeated The Gentlemen: McCreezy & Steel Jr.
Golden Greg pinned William DaVinci
Travis Toxic with Nox pinned Dreya Mitchell
Red Kingdom: Azaelle & Damian Wild defeated South Shore Wrecking Crew: Giovanni & Jack Saunders when they pinned Saunders
Yann Pike pinned Tyler Nox with Travis Toxic
Dylan Donovan pinned Stu Grayson
Audrey Moreau interviewing Stu Grayson was attacked by Alex Silva and Dani Leo
MDMA: Mitch Thompson & DGenerate with Midianne defeated NSPW Champion: Miche; Plante & Matt Falco with Maloon when Falco was pinned. This was advertised as a title match for Falco, MDMA ran in and it became a tag match, after Falco attacked Plante
Jason Gray pinned Heavy Rox, who was substituting for an injured Loue O’Farrell, who cut a promo on Gray after the match
Fans Bring The Weapons Match: Tabarnak de Team: Mathieu St. Jacques & Thomas Dubois defeated NSPW Tag Team Champions: Diamand Du Monde: Marko Estrada & Zak Patterson to win the championships
It was a great night of wrestling so many good matches, everyone played their roles well and really kept the pace of the show going. I've said it before, they have something very special in Quebec City with NSPW, a rabid fanbase, great production, consistency. Love it!
I was happy to see Dreya Mitchell live for the first time, she's excellent and is going to be huge someday. Travis Toxic is also VERY good and there's a reason he's so popular with the fanbase.
The tag team match with of Red Kingdom vs. South Shore Wrecking Crew told a great story where both teams seemed to be at odds within themselves and Red Kingdom was able to get it together to get the win. At intermission I had a great chat with them about this.
I got Azaelle to sign her card as well as my Celles Qui Luttent dvd. I was hoping to Loue to sign it as well, but she did not come out during intermission or after the show.
I a huge fan of Tabarnak de Team, seeing them win the fans bring the weapons match and capture the tag team titles was awesome!
After the show we headed back to the hotel Sunday morning we got ready but stuck around the hotel until the noon check out time, it was snowed a few inches overnight, and really didn't have anything to do until the hockey game.
Sunday's LNAH game was matinee with a 2pm start time watching the Nationals play the Sorel-Tracy Eperviers, a team we have seen before. Nationals play in a fairly new venue, it's very nice, but it doesn't have the same atmosphere as the other arenas. Either they don't have the fanbase as the other teams, or perhaps because of the time of the game attendance was quite low. Our seats were great, right at center ice in between both benches.
There was a lot of tension during warm ups and teams even nearly came to fisticuffs. Nationals played much better today beating the Eperviers 6 - 3. Some good aggressive hockey. We only have two teams left to see in their home arenas.
We headed home, it was about a 4.5 drive, and we managed to get home about 845pm. Out of Quebec City you take Autoroute 73 south which ends in Saint-Georges from there you side road and main route it for 134 miles to Interstate 95 in Fairfield. That 134 miles is a VERY long stretch of desolate road. It was after sunset when we crossed the border back into Maine. I told Canaan we had to scan for Moose as they are big and hide out in the dark.
About 3 miles north of the West Forks on the right side of the road we spotted the biggest moose I've ever seen! It looked like he had a billboard on his head the rack was so big when he turned his head. We stopped in Skowhegan to fuel up Vanatu and get yet another burger this time at Burger King.
It was an awesome weekend of wrestling and hockey.
Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page. You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book the 2024 Limitless Wrestling Almanac, or any of my other books.
January 4, 2026 marked the end to the career of one of the greatest Japanese professional wrestlers, Hiroshi Tanahashi. He debuted in October 1999 along with fellow young boys Katsuyori Shibata and Shinsuke Nakamura, dubbed the "New Three Musketeers" by the Japanese wrestling media. Named after the original Three Musketeers consisting of Keiji Muto, Masahiro Chono, and Shinya Hashimoto.
It's hard to believe Tanahashi was the first of the 3 the retire, Nakamura is in the WWE and Shibata, after a 4 year hiatus to recover from injury, is active in AEW. He has a fantastic career capturing numerous championships including becoming an 8 time IWGP Heavyweight Champion.
I was lucky enough to see Tanahashi wrestle live 3 time, ironically all in 2019. The first two times were during WrestleMania weekend in New York City. The first at the RevPro show pro held at the WrestleCon convention, before the show they did a meet and greet with several New Japan Pro Wrestlers, I met Tanahashi, Shibata, and Ishii. It was only $30 for a Combo and I got my card signed.
April 5, 2019
Revolution Pro WrestlingHilton Grand BallroomManhattan, NY
British Tag Team Champions: Suzuki-Gun: Minoru Suzuki & British Heavyweight Champion:
Zack Sabre Jr. defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi & Will Ospreay when Sabre pinned Ospreay
Jay, Mikey, and I had front row for the show, and during Tanahashi's entrance he stopped right in front of us and we all played air guitar together, it was a bad ass moment. I have the video clip somewhere and when I find it I will upload it here.
Talk about and all star tag team match!
April 6, 2019
New Japan Pro Wrestling / ROHMadison Square GardenManhattan, NY
G1 Supercard
British Heavyweight Champion: Zack Sabre Jr with Taka Michinoku defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi by submission
The three of us attended the first non WWF/WWE promoted wrestling event at Madison Square Garden in 60 years. We had front row balcony and pictures did come out great. This is one of the most historic wrestling events I have ever been to.
September 27, 2019
NJPW: New Japan Pro WrestlingMemorial AuditoriumLowell, MA
Fighting Spirit Unleashed
IWGP Heavyweight Champion: Kazuchiki Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi, & Kota Ibushi defeated Los Ingobernables de Japon: Tetsuya Naito, Evil & Sanada when Tanahashi pinned Naito with cobra twist
Mikey, Jay, and I also attended this event together. This tour of shows was the first time that New Japan ran shows in the US that were not co-promoted with Ring of Honor. Okada was the IWGP Heavyweight champion, but it was Tanahashi who stayed in the ring after the main event to thank the audience and play his air guitar for us.
I feel very fortunate to have seen Tanahashi wrestle live these three times and to have had the opportunity to meet him in person. It's important to take advantage of the opportunities when you can.
Incidentally, his last match was on January 4th against Okada, checking cagematch they have faced each other 249 times in singles and tag team matches.
Thank you for reading, please leave a comment, check out my other posts, and if you want like my blogs Facebook page. You can also head over to Amazon and pick up a copy of my book the 2024 Limitless Wrestling Almanac, or any of my other books.
