| Moderated by: Ron, brodiescomics, beejmi | ||
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Papa Voo
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Staying with the IWA theme. The Mighty Igor (Dick Garza) was another guy who showed up in the mags. What came first The Putski or The Igor? Did he ever leave Detroit area? Never showed up in the WWF probably because of Putski gimmick. |
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Benlen
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Igor showed up in SF for a few months.Remember them breaking a brick over his head with a sledge hammer |
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beejmi THE BIG KAHUNA 
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Missed opportunity: Igor & Putski as a tag team THE POLISH EXPRESS !!!!! |
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Papa Voo
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Never thought of that! The Kielbassi Posse! |
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beejmi THE BIG KAHUNA
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Papa Voo wrote: Never thought of that! Tell me that isn't M-O-N-E-Y !! |
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Matt Farmer
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Dick Garza's son, Eric recently messaged me on Facebook. Seems like a good guy. |
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NCJames
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Igor spent a year or year and a half in Carolinas after IWA fell through. |
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WongLee HALL OF FAMER 
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I think Igor was slightly before Ivan. Igor was cast as being virtually mentally retarded who only liked to play with toys but he had that retard strength. Putski debuted with a "brother" who I think was named Igor and while not booked as a retard he certainly wasn't going to be crashing any MENSA meetings. |
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Papa Voo
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Didn't Putski at one point early in his career also portray a childish image? I never go to a lot of Igor matches. Was he better or worse than Putski in the ring? It would take a lot to be worse. LOL |
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LarrySC
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Papa Voo wrote: Did he ever leave Detroit area? He actually was the AWA World Champion from 5/15/65 to 5/22/65, having won (and then lost) the title to Mad Dog Vachon with both matches taking place in Omaha. This still perplexes me to this day. |
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Ed Lock
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Papa Voo wrote: What came first The Putski or The Igor? G'day Papa Voo, The Mighty Igor Vodik debuted in the late 1950s under his real name of Dick Garza. Ivan Putski debuted in the late 1960s under his real name of Joe Bednarski. Garza began his career in Ohio before wrestling in his native Michigan. Garza & Eric Rommel (aka Eric Froelich) won the WWA International Television Tag Team Title in 1962 in California, which appears to be his biggest championship win to that date. Garza continued to work in California in 1963 before wrestling in Canada in late '63. In 1964 Garza used the name Johnny Bruce in Georgia but by mid year he returned to Michigan under his real name. Around October '64 Garza worked in the AWA where apparently Verne Gagne gave him the Igor gimmick. As LarrySC stated, Vodik won the AWA World Title in 1965. You also asked whether Putski portrayed a childish character early in his career. The first magazine photos of Bednarski (as Putski) that I saw were from the Tri State area circa 1971 where he was dressed as an Igor clone.  Cheers! Ed |
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TerryWWWF
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Putski was to Igor as Demolition was to the Road Warriors. |
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katook
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Igor, like Tex McKenzie from the other thread, was really cool and entertaining in the IWA as far as I was concerned as an 11 year old kid.he bulldog Brower Igor vs Dick the bulldog Brower certainly was cheesy by todays standards but was white hot back then. After the IWA folded Igor went to Crockett, where he did a pretty good feud with Masked Superstar and manager Boris Malenko where they did the whole ciger in the eye thing, then I believe he went to Florida where he feuded for a short time with Hulk Hogan. |
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khawk HALL OF FAMER 
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LarrySC wrote: Papa Voo wrote:Did he ever leave Detroit area? Omaha sort of did their own thing with the title...I doubt that Igor's win was ever mentioned or recognized in the Minneapolis-based portion. Bruiser and depending on where you look Tim Woods also had week-long "Omaha" reigns. Might have been a few more. |
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NJRob65
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Here's more information about the career of the Mighty Igor:http://wrestlingdata.com/index.php?befehl=bios&wrestler=2641&bild=1&details=7 Ivan Putski: http://wrestlingdata.com/index.php?befehl=bios&wrestler=1037&bild=1&details=7 Last edited on Mon Apr 11th, 2016 08:04 pm by NJRob65 |
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Ed Lock
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WongLee wrote: Putski debuted with a "brother" who I think was named Igor ... G'day WongLee, The team of Ivan and Igor Putski teamed up in the Tri State territory in 1972. Igor Putski was Rick Ferrara. Cheers! Ed |
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WongLee HALL OF FAMER
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Ed Lock wrote: WongLee wrote:Thanks for the confirmation Ed. I knew I had six or seven brain cells still intactPutski debuted with a "brother" who I think was named Igor ...  |
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tamalie HALL OF FAMER
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Mighty Igor debuted in the AWA in November of 1964, doing the fan out of the stands gimmick. He was a regular from then until April of 1966. For whatever reasons, he made some late 1966 and early 1967 appearance in Denver without making it to the rest of the AWA. He returned as a regular in August of 1967, staying into the late spring of 1968 with a few sporadic appearances that summer and fall. Igor made some guest appearances on and off from 1970 to 1973. Here is where it gets interesting. Ivan Putski arrived in the spring of 1974, staying through late August of 1975, later making a pair of late 1976 special appearances. He worked with Mighty Igor's gimmick, playing with toys, dancing to polka music, and having a similar beard and hairstyle, not to mention the singlet over frayed sweats. I'd always assumed the AWA brought in Putski in 1975 when Igor was on IWA TV in AWA markets. However, he was there before the IWA started. The AWA often went to painstaking lengths to not have conflicting gimmicks and names, hence the Dick The Bruiser/King Kong Brody/Boom Boom Bundy scenario. So what happened for the promotion to bring in an ersatz Igor? Then after all of this, Mighty Igor himself returned in June of 1978, staying into January of 1979 with one more special appearance that April. Considering the AWA's tendency to use older wrestlers who'd drawn in the past as well the fact that by the 1980s Mighty Igor wasn't in any demand, it's odd that he never even came back for a special appearance past 1979. For that matter, Ivan Putski never came back either after his mid 1970s run. Apart from the childlike strongman gimmick having broad appeal, AWA mainstay markets like the Twin Cities, Milwaukee, and Chicago all had significant Polish-American populations as did the smaller towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Perhaps by the 1980s the need to appeal directly to specific ethnic groups had faded. |
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