The Cream of the Crop #5 — Two Ways to Draw a Crowd: Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka & Ripper Collins

The Cream of the Crop #5 — Two Ways to Draw a Crowd: Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka & Ripper Collins Before Madison Square Garden. Before the steel cage. Before millions of wrestling fans knew the name Superfly, there was Portland. And standing across the ring from the young Jimmy Snuka was one of professional wrestling’s great old-school heels: Ripper Collins. In Episode 5 of The Cream of the Crop, Frank Culbertson looks back at two wrestlers who represented completely different ways to become a wrestling attraction. Snuka looked like the future—explosive, athletic and charismatic. Portland recognized his potential early and gave him a place to develop into the star the rest of the wrestling world would eventually know. Collins had already mastered a very different art: making people hate him. From filing his teeth during interviews to the brutal Opu Drop, Collins knew exactly how to make an audience desperate to see somebody shut him up. Their paths first crossed in Hawaii in 1973. Months later, both arrived in Portland, where those early encounters developed into a heated rivalry involving the Northwest Heavyweight Championship, disqualifications, title changes, a hair-versus-hair match—and Ripper Collins putting on a mask after losing his hair. One man made people buy a ticket because they wanted to see him win. The other made people buy a ticket because they wanted to see him lose. Different methods. Same result. People in the building. Two ways to draw a crowd. One made you cheer. One made you angry. Both made you care. That’s what legends do. The Cream of the Crop: The Main Eventers, the Money Draws, and the Territory Legends. New episodes drop every Friday. Based on The Encyclopedia of Portland Wrestlers by Mike Rodgers, with additional material from Oh Yeah! The History of Hawaiian Wrestling, also by Mike Rodgers. Both are available on Amazon. Next week: The Grappler gets the spotlight all to himself.