Muraco was phenomenal at being a heel! If you see his interviews he gives nowadays, he seems like one of the most down to earth nicest guys ever. He NEVER speaks ill of any of his old foes!
Not here but there was the racial stereotypes they used back in the day. But they were heels drawing heat and anger. That was the point of pushing those boundaries back then. Art imitating life.
there was absolutely no one better in the history of the business as Muraco on the mic or in the ring. Flair, Piper, Funk are all masters of the mic. And Muraco is right there with them. Painfully underrated.
Back when wrestlers seemed not like cartoons delivering canned lines and unnatural scripted promos but like real people..... showman and characters - but real.
my favorite wrestler when i was a kid dam he pissed people off,lol..that means he did his job i rank him no.3 behind ric flair and brett hart on my all-time list.''
WWF must have still been under McMahon Sr. control here because McMahon Sr. always wanted to have a certain wrestler for every ethnicity...Putski for the Polish, Tito for the Mexicans, Hogan(even though he wasn't) for the Irish and so forth...he wanted wrestlers to appeal to everyone and draw people in because it all comes down to the monay!
@lobsterbale The name Muraco comes from Italy. It's most common in the Calabria region - the "toes" of the "boot", at the southernmost part of the mainland, just NE of Sicily. It occurs most commonly in Argentina, which had large amounts of Italian immigrants. There are sites to look this stuff up.
Very few people were better on the mic than Muraco. I loved him! What a talent! Mike Sharp was managed my Albano at around this time. He wasn't ever much more than a jobber. Maybe a step above S.D. Jones. I actually met him once and he couldn't have been nicer. I was almost disappointed he was such a nice guy. Backlund was just a strange guy.
when was the last time you heard the term "squared circle"??...the last time you did was the end of wrestling and the beginning of sports(soap opera)entertainment...thanks vince, thanks
Superb promo. Muraco is trying to sell the feud with Tito, because Tito obviously didn't do his job and didn't sold the feud well enough. Tito was a great athlete and a great guy outside of the ring, but he didn't knew how to sell a feud and how to cut a decent promo. Muraco had to do everything he could to sell the feud and to bring people into the arena. Great heel.
The Magnificent Muraco was not only a great heel, but was also a dirtier player in the game than even Ric Flair. Nobody was saying the things he was saying back then. I have an audio cassette tape from somewhere around 1981-82, where he said that he was going to send Tony Atlas back to Africa, and then he was going to get his hands on "that greasy... slimey... smelly (spits)... Pedro Morales." I used to audio tape WWOR TV Channel 9 in New Jersey at midnight on Saturdays. Before we bought a VCR.
@Gamebox27 Don't take for granted that he's Italian simply because he's got a common, Southern Italian sounding-name. He could pass for Italian, Latin or a guy from the S. Pacific given the context. The only confirmation we have is that he's from Hawai'i.
@Gamebox27 So someone in the S. Pacific having a name like "Muraco" is unlikely? Why? Simply because you say so? Or because your assumption is fact? It's equally likely that he could be Samoan or Fijian.
Yeah - promos were much better back in the day. This is nowhere near racist -- racist was when Flair asked Booker T to carry his bags. :-) (All's fair in kayfabe, tho.) I used to go to the Garden pretty regularly as a kid in the late 70s-early 80s pre-Hogan and all of the heels used to take digs at the Puerto Rican and Hispanic fans (who were quite large in number). Particularly when the babyface (like in this case) was Hispanic. BTW, Muraco was always billed as being from Hawaii.
@SteveDrums-On Ernie Ladd, I also got a chance to talk with him back in the late 90s. Such a sweet guy. The complete antithesis of his bad guy persona, wasn't he?
Ole Anderson was Al "The Rock" Rogowski a good 20 years before Don Muraco was known as the Rock. A lot of guys in the business called Ole "Rock" behind the scenes. If anyone was the original Rock in pro wrestling , it was Ole, not Muraco.
Nothing is really racist unless it comes from a belief that races are inferior, or superior to each other based on their racial genetics. Calling someone a race based insult is an attempt to give a really nasty(an usually effective) insult to another person.
Muraco jumped the shark when he became a babyface. He was awesome as a heel and deserves mad respect. Not many people could fuck him up back in the day, cept Hogan, Snuka, and Morales.
Anyone in the US can move to Hawaii. Sure anyone could change their surname to something Italian (just like Jim Helwig can change his name to Warrior), but it's highly unlikely. The most likely explanation is that he is of Italian descent and ended up somehow being born in Hawaii. Maybe his dad was in the military stationed there.
I loved how blatantly he, a Hawaiian-American, espoused the point that he spewed all that racist shit for the express purpose of getting under his opponent Santana's skin. Because that's what HEELS do.
In the 80's, it was okay for a heel to make mildly racist comments...IF he was feuding with an African American babyface and the plan was for the black good guy to beat the shit out of the bad guy in the final match.
@frogca1 I was lucky enough to meet Ernie Ladd once - albeit briefly - and rarely have I met a man whose "goodness" shined through his soul. You could feel it in his handshake.
I recalled that move he did. His opponet sitting down on his behind. Then Don did a flip from behind him. Pressing the back of the head. Like forcing him to do like a snap like situp. That is agility. AS a youngster, that was a Wow moment or me.
1:18 He starts thinking about pineapple pizza and allows his mind to wander. You can't do that in the sport of professional wrestling. You have to stay focused. You have to stay alert and attentive. You have to be determined. If you allow Lou Albano eating pizza to distract you, you might need a new career. HaHaha.
@eslubin yeah i gotta 2nd that. this promo was really good. it drew me in. i normally dont watch a lot of old wrestling clips from before i started watching back in the mid to late 80s but maybe i should start.
I did an ancestry(dot)com search on the name "Muraco" and it says 6-9 families are in New York in 1920, while 3-5 are in PA, and zero in Hawaii. So while he was born in Hawaii, his family probably passed through the Northeast at some point.
It's unlikely because that's not a Samoan name. If his mother is a native Pacific Islander, that's another thing, but the surname Muraco comes from Italy. BTW, the Samoan alphabet has only fourteen letters:-5 vowels - a, e, i, o, u and 9 consonants - f, g, l, m, n, p, s, t, v. Funny, no ch or c to be found. K sounds are from loan words.
I am hispanic and I loved the Magnificent One. These young kids today could learn alot by watching the old timers cut promos. No writers necessary.
No writers at all straight from the hip 11 yrs in the business experience saying this.
As a Latino. This was great!
One of the greatest promo masterminds of all time. And a great heel and champion as well.
One of my favorite heels when I was a kid. And also IMO one of the best Intercontinental Champs WWE has had.
The more I watch this the more I'm comiong to the conclusion that this is one of the greatest wrestling interviews of all time.
Agree!
This guy was awesome. MDM.
hands down, one of the greatest promo cutters of all time!!
Muraco was my idol when I was a kid, he was the coolest bad guy out there and a great IC champ.
Muraco was phenomenal at being a heel! If you see his interviews he gives nowadays, he seems like one of the most down to earth nicest guys ever. He NEVER speaks ill of any of his old foes!
He didn't even say any Mexican jokes. He didn't say anything derogatory about mexicans at all.
Not here but there was the racial stereotypes they used back in the day. But they were heels drawing heat and anger. That was the point of pushing those boundaries back then. Art imitating life.
there was absolutely no one better in the history of the business as Muraco on the mic or in the ring. Flair, Piper, Funk are all masters of the mic. And Muraco is right there with them. Painfully underrated.
What about Bob Backlund?
muraco is mic gold !!!!!!!
The goddamn roster WWF got at this time: Tito, Don Muraco, Iron Mike Sharpe, Tony Atlas...dang!! This guys could draw alot nowadays!
Even Sharpe is better than anyone they have today.
Not a racist, just trying to sell tickets.
Exactly
@@QUANTRELLBISHOP I see we have an Iron Sheik fan in the audience.
Actually that's bs
Their was actually alot if racism in the 80s with wrestling
@@riff2072 LOL
The stuff Jessie Ventura said about Tito Santana doing commentary was much worse.
I used to record these on audio cassette tapes on Channel 9 in Secaucus, New Jersey. No VCR back then.
Muraco was the best promo in his era.
I miss that beach bum.I loved his tombstone piledriver too I miss his feuds with fellow Hawaiian Ricky Steamboat that was a classic.
Such a good promo, his mic style was so unorthodox and it seemed very natural.
This was great. I totaly agree w/ phatalbert! Todays wrestlers can't hold a candle to Muraco's promos.
The man was gold on the mic. His promos for upcoming MSG matches were the highlight of old WWWF on WOR TV in New Jersey.
Always a great promo
If this is racism, than we need to get rid of all forms ofg comedic entertainment in this country. Don Muraco was a great entertainer.
btw this guy is gold. What crazy promos these guys used to cut. Now if only people did these type today.
It’s a shame that Terry Funk and Magnificent never hooked it up as a tag team. they would’ve been one of the greatest combinational of promos ever!
no one can do a tremendous interview like this now.
Back when wrestlers seemed not like cartoons delivering canned lines and unnatural scripted promos but like real people..... showman and characters - but real.
i am a minority and godamn that was a good promo
Muraco is a more of a minority than Tito Santana...lol
Their was something amazing and soul searching about Don Muraco's promos
I hated this dude as a child ! But now I think he’s a legend who did a great job !
Great fucking promo
my favorite wrestler when i was a kid dam he pissed people off,lol..that means he did his job i rank him no.3 behind ric flair and brett hart on my all-time list.''
@SenseiV1 Toward the end, when the camera got closer. Made me focus on Muraco's eyes. Intensity!
He's playing a character.
WWF must have still been under McMahon Sr. control here because McMahon Sr. always wanted to have a certain wrestler for every ethnicity...Putski for the Polish, Tito for the Mexicans, Hogan(even though he wasn't) for the Irish and so forth...he wanted wrestlers to appeal to everyone and draw people in because it all comes down to the monay!
@lobsterbale The name Muraco comes from Italy. It's most common in the Calabria region - the "toes" of the "boot", at the southernmost part of the mainland, just NE of Sicily. It occurs most commonly in Argentina, which had large amounts of Italian immigrants. There are sites to look this stuff up.
Very few people were better on the mic than Muraco. I loved him! What a talent!
Mike Sharp was managed my Albano at around this time. He wasn't ever much more than a jobber. Maybe a step above S.D. Jones. I actually met him once and he couldn't have been nicer. I was almost disappointed he was such a nice guy. Backlund was just a strange guy.
How's the Fall River area this time of year?
Well I learned that light blue suits really cover up the effects of roids nicely!
Agreed. I have always told newer fans about Muraco, and how his promos should be the blueprint for any heel today, but it's too PC now.
Don Muraco was one of my favorite heels.
Capt Lou starts to laugh and quickly leaves the promo.
when was the last time you heard the term "squared circle"??...the last time you did was the end of wrestling and the beginning of sports(soap opera)entertainment...thanks vince, thanks
Superb promo. Muraco is trying to sell the feud with Tito, because Tito obviously didn't do his job and didn't sold the feud well enough. Tito was a great athlete and a great guy outside of the ring, but he didn't knew how to sell a feud and how to cut a decent promo. Muraco had to do everything he could to sell the feud and to bring people into the arena. Great heel.
but he could throw his arm up in the air and yell ARRIBA!
The Magnificent Muraco was not only a great heel, but was also a dirtier player in the game than even Ric Flair. Nobody was saying the things he was saying back then. I have an audio cassette tape from somewhere around 1981-82, where he said that he was going to send Tony Atlas back to Africa, and then he was going to get his hands on "that greasy... slimey... smelly (spits)... Pedro Morales." I used to audio tape WWOR TV Channel 9 in New Jersey at midnight on Saturdays. Before we bought a VCR.
LOL Vince looks like he has bad teeth at the end.
@Gamebox27 Don't take for granted that he's Italian simply because he's got a common, Southern Italian sounding-name. He could pass for Italian, Latin or a guy from the S. Pacific given the context. The only confirmation we have is that he's from Hawai'i.
@Gamebox27 The Tessin region of Switzerland also has a high occurence of the name.
Morocco was not racist he was the champ!!
Mannnn he could talk trash lmaoooo 😀😀😀The Beach Bum!!!💥
@Xontar02 They called Ole the Rock on tv also
@Gamebox27 So someone in the S. Pacific having a name like "Muraco" is unlikely? Why? Simply because you say so? Or because your assumption is fact?
It's equally likely that he could be Samoan or Fijian.
Not racist AT ALL. People need to stop being sensitive snowflakes.
Yeah - promos were much better back in the day. This is nowhere near racist -- racist was when Flair asked Booker T to carry his bags. :-) (All's fair in kayfabe, tho.)
I used to go to the Garden pretty regularly as a kid in the late 70s-early 80s pre-Hogan and all of the heels used to take digs at the Puerto Rican and Hispanic fans (who were quite large in number). Particularly when the babyface (like in this case) was Hispanic.
BTW, Muraco was always billed as being from Hawaii.
After Ric Flair & Dusty Rhoads... Muraco had the best promos
@SteveDrums-On Ernie Ladd, I also got a chance to talk with him back in the late 90s. Such a sweet guy. The complete antithesis of his bad guy persona, wasn't he?
Magnificent on the mic!!!!!!!!
Ole Anderson was Al "The Rock" Rogowski a good 20 years before Don Muraco was known as the Rock. A lot of guys in the business called Ole "Rock" behind the scenes. If anyone was the original Rock in pro wrestling , it was Ole, not Muraco.
God, he could cut a promo!
Modern-day wrestlers could take some hints from Muraco's mike skills. No one knows how to cut promos anymore.
Thats my nigga
he got a mixed reaction back in the dya but he was amazing he actually had talent
@lobsterbale He's Hawaiian.
Iron Mike Sharp!? i remember him as the infamous weekend Superstars and Wrestling Challenge jobber in the 90s. i never knew he was a wrestling vet.
The comments were more bigoted (Archie Bunker Style) than outright racist.
Take it easy snowflake Liberal, it’s all part of the show
@@tylerdemos2464 I voted for Trump...twice...idiot
@@scottbreon9448 so? So did I. Again, all part of the show Sport!! No reason to get your panties in a bunch
He is magnificent!
He recently managed his son Joe in World Xtreme Wrestling in Philly. He co-founded Hawai'i Championship Wrestling with Linda Bade in 2003. -Wikipedia
People are to damn sensetive today !
Muraco was equally great being intense and scary or just being silly. Great in the ring, too.
Nothing is really racist unless it comes from a belief that races are inferior, or superior to each other based on their racial genetics.
Calling someone a race based insult is an attempt to give a really nasty(an usually effective) insult to another person.
I would love to see Iron Mike Sharpe square off against Mr. USA Tony Atlas, and more!
Tony Atlas would win!! 😆
don muraco had a level of heat with fans in early 80s wwf that is hard to describe to modern fans. fans wanted him DEAD.
Is Muraco from New York?
Muraco was a master at everything he did within the wrestling world. He was NO racist.
Muraco jumped the shark when he became a babyface. He was awesome as a heel and deserves mad respect. Not many people could fuck him up back in the day, cept Hogan, Snuka, and Morales.
the real rock
@mrnaji What actual proof, outside of your own conjecture, do you have?
Anyone who thinks this guy was just acting or was the only flamboyantly racist guy involved in this business is crazy.
What seems to be the problem here? What am I missing?
Anyone in the US can move to Hawaii. Sure anyone could change their surname to something Italian (just like Jim Helwig can change his name to Warrior), but it's highly unlikely. The most likely explanation is that he is of Italian descent and ended up somehow being born in Hawaii. Maybe his dad was in the military stationed there.
The name Muraco is Italian. But that's not his real last name. His real last name is Morrow and that is an Irish last name but he is Hawiian.
It's Chico.
what ever happened to him?
I loved how blatantly he, a Hawaiian-American, espoused the point that he spewed all that racist shit for the express purpose of getting under his opponent Santana's skin. Because that's what HEELS do.
In the 80's, it was okay for a heel to make mildly racist comments...IF he was feuding with an African American babyface and the plan was for the black good guy to beat the shit out of the bad guy in the final match.
One of the best.
1983... The last great year of the WWF
@frogca1 I was lucky enough to meet Ernie Ladd once - albeit briefly - and rarely have I met a man whose "goodness" shined through his soul. You could feel it in his handshake.
yep. they did that alot in the 80s. i just look at it as trash talk. it never got super racist really.
Yeah people are way too sensitive these days
I recalled that move he did. His opponet sitting down on his behind. Then Don did a flip from behind him. Pressing the back of the head. Like forcing him to do like a snap like situp. That is agility. AS a youngster, that was a Wow moment or me.
I always thought he looked Italian not Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
That's an amazing promo
Actually a good promo. No bullshit.
1:18 He starts thinking about pineapple pizza and allows his mind to wander. You can't do that in the sport of professional wrestling. You have to stay focused. You have to stay alert and attentive. You have to be determined. If you allow Lou Albano eating pizza to distract you, you might need a new career. HaHaha.
@mrnaji He doesn't look Southern Italian? M'kay.
He sort of looks like Vincent Pastore.
Magnificent One & Hot Rod were the best promo's back in the day, long before Hulk, Stone Cold and the Rock...
@eslubin yeah i gotta 2nd that. this promo was really good. it drew me in. i normally dont watch a lot of old wrestling clips from before i started watching back in the mid to late 80s but maybe i should start.
I'm trying to act smart because I'm asking if he was called the Rock? lol, you answered my question though, thanks.
Epic..... Great promo!
I did an ancestry(dot)com search on the name "Muraco" and it says 6-9 families are in New York in 1920, while 3-5 are in PA, and zero in Hawaii. So while he was born in Hawaii, his family probably passed through the Northeast at some point.
lol really? Wasn't he also called "The Rock" Don Muraco?
Yes i remember it..Don the rock Muraco..i seen him and titto in match as a kid in The Denver Coliseum
It's unlikely because that's not a Samoan name. If his mother is a native Pacific Islander, that's another thing, but the surname Muraco comes from Italy.
BTW, the Samoan alphabet has only fourteen letters:-5 vowels - a, e, i, o, u and 9 consonants - f, g, l, m, n, p, s, t, v. Funny, no ch or c to be found. K sounds are from loan words.
"Oh amigos amigos, lovely lovely." LOL
3 Amigos?