Princess Victoria is one of the unsung heroes of women’s wrestling. She only wrestled for four years, her career ending after a fluke accident, but she remains a fan favorite. She’s a Cauliflower Alley Club award winner and a Women’s Tag Team Champion. She’s also a true warrior, a survivor who overcame a horrific childhood before she ever set foot in the ring.
Vicki Otis holds nothing back in this new memoir. She is incredibly frank about the abuse she suffered as a child, a story she shares in hopes of helping others. Vicki will also make you laugh out loud with some fantastic memories of friends like Wendi Richter, Velvet McIntyre, Stan Stasiak, Buddy Rose, Sandy Barr, and Roddy Piper.
Books will be in stock this weekend and ship early next week. If you’re a fan of 80s wrestling or ladies wrestling, this is one you cannot miss!
I just re-read through the wrestling chapters tonight. Vicki has some tremendous stories about Wendi Richter, Velvet McIntyre, Stan Stasiak, Roddy Piper, and more.
This will not be an easy read for some. Her childhood was a living nightmare. It’s a story she wanted to tell in the hopes that other people with similar experiences can get help just as she has.
A month or so back, I was surfing the Channel Store on Roku and came across a new wrestling channel simply called ‘Rasslin. Featuring a Rob Van Dam caricature on its channel graphic, ‘Rasslin promised to be a free channel boasting lots of old school wrestling. I decided to give it a try.
Simply put: ‘Rasslin is a free Roku channel with content you would gladly pay for.
The first video I watched on ‘Rasslin was an episode of WCCW from the old Sportatorium featuring the Von Erichs and the Freebirds in the main event. As if that wasn’t enough to keep me watching, the episode itself had a recently filmed introduction hosted by Kevin Von Erich and Michael Hayes. I was immediately taken back to my middle school days, when I used to watch WCCW on ESPN every afternoon after school on my Mom and Dad’s bedroom TV.
I let ‘Rasslin run for a few hours and I was treated to surprise after surprise. I saw Dick the Bruiser, Mean Gene Okerland, Dusty Rhodes, Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin, Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express, the Fabulous Kangaroos, Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Andre the Giant, Roddy Piper, Dr. D David Schultz, Sgt. Slaughter. I saw matches and even full TV episodes from the AWA, Memphis Wrestling, Crockett Promotions, and more. Almost every new video brought a new surprise.
‘Rasslin has a seemingly endless supply of wrestling content, but unlike most Roku channels, they do not have a searchable menu. When you open ‘Rasslin, a live stream begins, feeding you one video after another, interrupted by the occasional commercial.
There are some more recent independent wrestling videos on ‘Rasslin, as well as some hotel room women’s wrestling and other strange matches, but ‘Rasslin does allow you to skip any video by hitting the fast forward button on your remote.
‘Rasslin is a must-have for fans of old school wrestling. It’s the perfect compliment to paid wrestling channels, full if binge worthy matches, promos, and memories. It’s a channel you can put on and leave on that feeds surprise after surprise with every new video.
There are many reasons to lament the changes that have happened in the wrestling business in the past few decades, but there are some things we should all be glad to see let go. In the wake of Axl Rotten’s death, former ECW star Nova went on Facebook to praise the current generation of wrestlers for letting the eschewing the old ways of the wrestling business in favor of video games and other, much safer vices. The movement from bar fights to Mario Cart has as much to do with the change in our journalistic culture as anything. TMZ is always lurking, especially if you’re a WWE star. But the truth is the video game tournaments hosted by Xavier Woods and the like are keeping wrestlers out of trouble and away from the dangers that continue to take a toll on the heroes of the past.
I enjoy the wild stories of Johnny Valentine, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, and the Freebirds as much as anyone. But I am glad that so many of today’s stars have chosen to be a little wiser with their leisure and travel time. Hopefully the coming decades will give us more old wrestlers telling stories and fewer “gone too soon” headlines.
Kayfabenews.com said it best tonight: the greatest pay-per-view in the history of Heaven is happening tonight.
Just a few weeks after we lost Dusty Rhodes, Rowdy Roddy Piper is gone. My Facebook page is flooded with posts from wrestling fans, horror movie fans, and people who are neither remembering a true original. No one was a quick as Roddy on the mic. No one was better at playing the heel and getting heat. And by every account I’ve ever heard, he was the nicest and classiest guy in the locker room with the boys (and ladies) and out in public with the fans.
My first thought for this post was to share one video: the Piper’s Pit interview with the legendary (only because Piper made him a legend) Frank Williams. But you can’t narrow Roddy down to just one clip. Here’s a bunch of Roddy pulled from my Facebook wall.
Before the weekend’s over, I’ll be watching They Live, Welcome to Frogtown, and a whole lot of Piper’s Pit. RIP, Hot Rod. Thoughts and prayers to his family and friends left behind.
Kayfabenews.com said it best tonight: the greatest pay-per-view in the history of Heaven is happening tonight.