So, I missed it.
I was only 14 at the time & had just taken an interest in boxing. And, at the time they really built these matches up in the press as actual fights. I certainly had no idea of the difference between a "shoot" & a "work" & this was back in the day when a decent portion of the public still thought that pro wrestling matches were real.
And, neither of my parents followed boxing or wrestling, aside from taking a casual interest in the fights that I watched on TV ( unlike a lot of folks, I discovered boxing & became a fanatic on my own without really being influenced by any one else ), so they couldn't set me straight on this card ( or actually cards, telecast from Japan & NYC ) being a "work".
Which, even had I known that it was, wouldn't have prevented me from wanting to see it. Though I'm sure it would made having to miss it a bit easier on me than it was that night ...
As it was, I stayed up waiting to here the results on our local 11 O'Clock newscast, but they couldn't give it because it was still in progress. So, back in those pre-cable days of no 24 hour SPORTSCENTER, no CNN, when the local channels actually still signed off for the night & there was nothing but test patterns on the tube from about 1 AM 'til 6 or 7 in the morning, this poor kid tossed & turned all night. Unable to do anything other than fall into an occasional light doze while wondering & waiting to hear the results.
So, at the crack of dawn I was up tuned into GOOD MORNING AMERICA to find out what happened.
And, like everyone else in the world, I was highly disappointed in the anti-climax of a result to the main event. I'd been hoping like hell for an Ali knock out victory, while also fearing for his health, hell, his very LIFE seeing as how they'd done such a good job of selling Inoki as a huge, fierce master of all martial arts as well as wrestling!
They did make a quick mention of the result of Wepner's match with The Giant as well.
Now, all these years later, I can't recall which network picked up the rights to rebroadcast the event, but one of them did a week or two later & I spent that Friday night discovering that those 15 rounds were, indeed, just as dull as indicated by the newspaper stories said it had been.
But, MUCH to my dismay, that night's rebroadcast didn't include the Wepner - Andre match. Not so much as a few seconds of footage!
And, although I've read probably a few dozen accounts of it ( usually accompanied by the same photo or two ) over the past thirty years & talked to many people who saw it, I'd never ANY film or video of it.
Until today on YOU TUBE.
And, while I'm awfully happy about FINALLY getting to see it, I was shocked at the hyperbole most accounts have described this match with!
I mean, from day one back in '76, all the stories wrote of this one having been the "shoot" of the two matches on closed circuit that night. They all told of how afraid of The Giant Chuck looked in the ring & of the fearsome beating that Andre put on him before literally THROWING him out of the ring into the crowd. With some accounts saying poor Wepner wound up in the third row, while others said the sixth row!
I remember reading those stories in vivid detail.
Let me tell you, it was nice to finally get to see what REALLY happened today & it was FAR from everything that I've ever read or heard.
It was obviously just your routine WWF work.
Instead of the Butterbean vs Bart Gunn "shoot" that I'd expected to see transire on the video, what I wound up seeing was much more like 'Bean's earlier appearance on a WWF PPV in a rather silly "work" against "Marvelous" Mark Mero.
All those "vicious headbutts" from Andre I'd heard about over the past three decades were just your typical "worked" headbutts , very much pulled & VERY obviously delivered to the back of his own hand as he held Wepner in place for them.
It was hilarious actually to see the notoriously cut prone "Bayonne Bleeder" supposedly take these full force headbutts from a guy with a noggin the size of a small boulder & yet, miraculously come away from them at the end of the "fight" with not so much as a nick or a spot of blood on him ...
As for Chuck being tossed like a ragdoll several rows into the crowd, Andre actually just picked him up & heaved him ever so gently over the top rope, where he subsequently landed on the ring apron only to THEN roll off onto the floor!
To me, the only thing that looked the least bit unscripted was back inside in the ring during the aftermath when it appears that there might have been a couple of seconds of legitimate heat between Wepner & The Giant & their handlers. But that's where the video ends.
Sorry to write such a novel-length post about this, but c'mon, it was thirty years in the making!