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"Remembering... the Apter Mags"
Maurizio

Is this on?

My name's Maurizio. I'm 22 years old and am a good boy. I always eat what my mama tells me to and despite the fact that I've got no college degree on my shoulders, I'm pretty much the best employee at my place (read: stinky, greasy McDonald's where I usually bust my butt for minimum wage along my young and inept colleagues). I love life, I love my mom and dad and am pretty much convinced females are sensitive and quite better that males. I don't have a girlfriend... but if I did I'm sure I'd love her very much. Bye all :)!

... now that I've taken the "pretty guy introduces himself to the oh-so-lovable masses" act out of the way, let the real introduction begin...

I started following the biz in '88 alongside my late grandfather (he wasn't dead then, smart guys!) in little Milan, Italy. Normal up-bringings if you don't ount the fact that for an 8 years old kid following the biz in my coutry is almost impossible. We got no wrestling on free tv, pay-per-view or basic cable networks. We used to but then it was general opinion that wrestling wasn't the soccer-loving Italians favorite past time. So it got shafted and from the it was all buy tapes here, trade tapes there and so on and on and on.

... then I discovered the 'net.... and discovered nude females altogether, but that'sa different story and one I'll tell you when I'll actually get a good chunk of readership... but before the internet there were the Apter Mags, and boy do i miss those days buying black and white mags with pictures of Hogan on the cover and fake interviews for marks like... well, like me and you.

Remember all the good things about PWI, The Wrestler, Inside Wrestling and George Napolitano's trash mags?

This column is about none of those qualities.

The very first mag I started reading heavily was, of course, the wrestling fan's Bible, WWF magazine. Oh, that colored bi*ch had it all. There were intrviews with the likes of Papa Shango and Big Bossman. Photo essays on the various tours the WWF booked in Spain, England and Germany. In depth previews of the upcoming shows and COLOR! COLOR! COLOR! You seem for us lil' marks COLOR was everything (and it still is, despite the changing of the definition from pages of a mag to COLOR on Flair's forehead).

And what about the Apter mags themselves? See, there's 3 different stages of being a mark.

Stage 1 - You hear of the WWF and, of course, you know they publish a mag.

Stage 2 - You buy the mag.

Stage 3 - You discover Pro Wrestling Illustrated and from then on you'll be able to impress newcomers by telling them "you still wasting money on that glorified WWF b.s.?

And for how much you can say about the mark mags, the London Publishing series was truly awesome.

Awesome were the ways they found to steal your money while trying to *keep kayfabe* and here, my friends, there are other 3 stages to pass through for your pleasure:

Stage 1 - You guess that the biz is legit if someone loses his time writing about it.

Stage 2 - You suspect Dusty Rhodes really ain't in the writing staff.

Stage 3 - You've got troubles reading about Prince Kharis being a real mummy while keeping a straight face.

Isn't innocence beautiful?

But for every "Larry Zbyszko tried to kill Bruno Sammartino" or "Nikita Koloff on mission from the Cremlin" stories you read, boy, did they make up with the features:

  • Eddie Ellner, perhaps the best Mark madden-clone a mark mag will ever get.
  • the PWI 500. A worked list of wrestlers that annualy (from '91) starts internet riots over some indy loser not included. A few years ago was Nova. keeping the tradition alive, baby...
  • The year-end awards. A best of the year-kind of feature, this one worked too, to get over a wrestler or two. of course, the whole deal fell aprt in '94 after almost all the awards went to Hulk Hogan's WCW. The fact that Apter got invited to a WCW press conference to assign the awards just buried the already dead tradition. Dusty Rhodes most popular wrestler of the year in '87? Well, if that mean the mag would get no refusal for photos shoots and the likes...
  • the WWF vs WCW features. Debates over who's the best worker? What the best match was and in what event? Of course not, you silly! better yet, pick the best ten WCW and WWF wrestlers... and square them off in a no-holds barred borefest when editors pick the winner based on worked qualities like strenght, speed, stamina, steroid abusing... scratch the last one, in Apter-land there are no steroids, only slightly BIGGER wrestlers.
  • The Computer Tourney. So one day Apter goes shopping to Apple's and sees one hell of a computer system. Of course, being the mark at heart he is, he thinks "WOW! That's one fine boy there! I'm gonna pick it up with Stanley's (Weston, founder of the series of mags) money and engage in all sorts of matches with my favorite grapplers! Whoooop-de-doo!" And it worked the first time, only to lose interest after common marks like me could just buy a video game and create a wrestler to book the dream matches you wanted.
  • Worked angles with memeber of the staff. This one was a no-miss idea. Pick awriter, say Apter or Rosenbaum, and ghost-write a peice declaring your respect/disdain with the mag or another wrestler. Pillman, Hogan, Piper, Bret Hart. You name it. Semt like without the burden of tv tapings and TV feuds, these wrestlers here found time to promote their own fight via the mag... hell! I'd have vented on Apter too if I was named the second best wrestler in the world after Austin, like DDP allegedly did in a phone interview in '97!
  • Fake writers. Brandi Mankievicz and uncle Matt Brock (complete with cancer-ridden girlfriend) were just two of the drug-indiced creations at London Publishing. To summarize these characters Mankievicz was the resident bi*ch, Brock the stiff veteran and Liz Hunter the lesbian oldie gettin' to screw wrestlers (she actually got on a date with Shawn Michaels, but don't tell his wife).

    ... and these were just a few of the qualities of mark mags like these. See, they were so devoted to keeping the *secret* that when they finally tried to get in the smark arena they got booed no matter the shoot interviews with Jim Ross or the exensive editorials on backstage politics, leaving that job to the World Of Wrestling series of mags that bombed after a year.

    And, of course, there's a just a comprensive list of magazines lik these ones directed to the common fan, too lazy to learn about the truth, too passionate to choose another hobby:

    • New Wave Wrestling. One of the first mags to expose the biz with long interviews with Thesz, Bret, Valentine and Jim Duggan. Too bad they copled these features with idiotic pieces on the Nash World Order and Hulk Hogan's ultimate comeback.
    • Wrestling All-Stars. George Napolitano's brain child and any smut loving fan's dream. The formula? Tons of pics and really few contents. Quite a pleasing read if you're into photos but really nothing to write home about. The poor man's version of PWI.
    • World Of Wrestling. Maybe the last real try to get over a mag directed to the *new mark*. So the mag was plastered with insider terms and interviews and pieces. The only problem is that it was no different from a copy of Raw magazine in that yes, they talked about works, shoots, faces, heels, but they just showcased the glittering part of the biz. Personally, I'm still pretty convinced the mag had all the right connections to become the last great thing. But it happened what generally happned to those guys that try to sell a mag to internet based junkies like us.

    So we've grown, gotten educated on th biz and the internet is the Mecca of all the knowledge we can get.

    Still miss those rainy days when a piece on Jake Roberts trying to kill randy savage brought a smile to my face.

    Of course, Jake Roberts exposing himself in a crack-induced frenzy is equally funny.