That was awesome! (clap clap clapclapclap): The Four Horsemen jump Dusty Rhodes in a parking lot

On last night's The Wrestling Aficionado (listen here), I lamented how despite growing up in Texas, I wasn't really exposed to the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) or World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) during my formative years.

I was a WWF/E kid through and through and I grew up idolizing larger than life characters like Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, and The Undertaker not realizing that a more realistic approach to the art of wrestling was taking place just a few states over.

I didn't really discover the glory days of NWA and Jim Crockett Promotions until my teenage years when my wrestling appetite was insatiable and I scoured the internet for anything and everything grappling related.

I immediately fell in love with the no-nonsense approach that was taken by Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, and the rest of the gang in Charlotte. It's a big reason I gravitate towards Ring of Honor (ROH) now.

Here's one moment that always stuck with me. In the clip, The Four Horsemen -- Flair, Ole Anderson, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and manager JJ Dillon -- follow Rhodes into a parking lot, corner him, and beat the hell out of him for putting Blanchard on the shelf with an injury.

Check it out.

They tied the man to a truck and broke his freaking hand! How is that not the most gangster thing you've ever seen?

Rhodes was no stranger to the Horsemen's antics having suffering a broken ankle at the hands of Flair and the Anderson brothers as well. That incident, of course, led to the fantastic "Hard Times" promo you can see here.

Yeah, NWA was awesome.