With the dawn of the 1990's The Wrestling landscape was a much different place than it was just a few years before. Vincent K. McMahon had re-envisioned the industry and as a result many promotions around the country were laid to waste. After the dust cleared only Vince's WWF and the Ted Turner backed WCW (the former Jim Crockett's NWA territory) remained. Everyone else was considered the minor leagues and were viewed of much lesser quality then the big two.
However the 90's brought about another change. Interest in pro wrestling was beginning to wain in the early part of the decade. The novelty of the mid 80's had worn off and crowds began to slide. After the bomb of the Hulk Hogan starring movie No Holds Barred, declining attendance and viewers, and then Hulk himself leaving the WWF to go film another movie, Vince was beginning to feel the decline. After "passing the torch" to another popular star, The Ultimate Warrior, in April of 1990, House show attendance began to decline rapidly. Even when Hogan returned in August of 1990, the fans were leaving in droves. The kids of the 80's had grown up and grown tired of Hogan's routine. Television numbers declined to the point where the once mighty Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC was canceled in early 1991. The situation was made even worse in early 1992 when the Federal government began building a case against McMahon over the illegal distribution of steroids. With that accusation and the WWF under a microscope several talents left the WWF either by choice of were fired. Hogan himself left the WWF in 1992 for a full year and returned in February of 1993 much smaller. Although officially the reason for the absence was to make two movies, many fans believed it was for a much more sinister reason. And outside the Summerslam 1992 event that drew over 80,000 fans to Wembley Stadium in England, the WWF was a flop. When Hogan finally returned in early 1993 even he couldn't save the company's woes and after a world title run with few appearances on television, Hogan was let go for good in June of 1993.
Starting in early 1993 the WWF tried to freshen up it's television presentation. The Monday night Prime Time Wrestling clip show was transformed into Monday Night RAW, a one hour live show (at least for the first few weeks) that featured a faster paced and more competitive matches. Many of the old television personalities were pushed to the side to make room for new faces like radio DJ Todd Pentengill, Comedian Rob Bartlett, and even former lead announcer for WCW Jim Ross, and former WCW wrestler Stan Lane were all brought in and old favorites like Gene Oakerland, Sean Mooney, and Gorilla monsoon were given less screen time or let go fromthe company all together. This change didn't spark a lot of new interest in the product however. Attendance slid, the ratings for RAW were exactly the same for Prime Time Wrestling. In the next couple of years Vince tried to promote the "New Generation" of the WWF, with Bret Hart, Lex Luger (once a villain who was quickly turned into an American flag waving good guy after the termination of Hogan) as the top stars of the company. But outside of a few standouts most the the WWF roster were empty gimmicks designed to sell merchandise rather than characters people could relate to. Even after the acquittal of Vince McMahon in the summer of 1994 it was apparent that he and the company as a whole had lost touch with it's fan base. This point was made more evident as the programming before and after the Monday Night show was skewed to an older audience while the WWF featured safe family entrainment with little fowl language, cartoonish characters (including a clown, a trashman, a monk, amongst others) toned down violence and no blood at all, all the while marketing toys and stuffed animals for children.
Meanwhile in WCW things were going much better. After a revolving doors of head creative people and Turnr executives, and a rash of injuries and departures, 1990 was not a good year for the company. What followed was years of backstage conflict between the creative people and those in charge of the company. This turnoil came to a head when in the summer of 1991 long time star of the NWA/WCW Ric Flair left the promotion after conflicts with WCW president Jim Herd and returning booker Dusty Rhodes. Flair went on to the WWF with the world title belt with him. Several people were given the chance to run the company over the next few years until WCW landed in the lap of former AWA sales rep and low level broadcaster Eric Bischoff. One of Eric's first moves in 1993 was to start taping a majority of their programming from the MGM studios at Disneyworld to reduce spending. Although good from a financial standpoint this greatly effected the product as shows were taped 6 to 8 months in advance. The talent was less motivated to perform as their immediate futures were essentially set in stone. Not only that but results from these shows were leaked in the internet's early days and in newsletters giving away results of bigger pay per view shows months before those shows were even held. Things really hit rock bottom for the company at this point when in October of 1993 Top star and future world Champion (matches had been taped with him wearing the title) Sid Viscous stabbed Arn Anderson 40 times with a pair of scissors in a hotel in England. WCW was reluctant to fire Sid because of the taped plans, but the threat of the rest of the roster walking off a live pay per view event in November forced WCW's plans to abandon the plans.
Turner execs were putting Eric under the microscope himself and in an attempt to save his own job he brokered a deal to bring Hulk Hogan to WCW in mid 1994. Hogan's impact was immediate as he brought many of his friends from the old WWF with him. The entire direction of the company changed overnight. Ric Flair (who had returned in 1993 and made the top face of the company again after Sid was fired) was abruptly turned heel. Once the top face of the promotion, Sting was regulated to mid card feuds and even not appearing at shows at all. Although interest initially was high, this soon faded as Hogan's performances were soon the same performances against the same people (with different names) from the WWF. The buys for the pay per view events returned to their normal levels by the end of 1993. As 1994 and 1995 wore on, WCW stagnated more and more before a step, at the behest of Ted Turner himself, started making WCW competitive again.
By late 1995 WWF's Monday night RAW program was only live about once a month and was often filled with one sided undercard matches. WCW began to counter this with a live show directly opposite RAW called Monday Nitro. Nitro was live for most weeks, and featured less one sided "squash" matches and more action than the WWF's RAW. The competitive atmosphere, known as the "Monday Night Wars" sparked slow incline in interest in the product again.
Soon WCW became known by wrestlers and fans alike for being the place that offered more money and better deals for talent at the time. Not only aging stars but also current stars jumped from the WWF to WCW for the opportunity to make more money. Two of the biggest stars of the time were Scott Hall (Known in the WWF as Razor Ramon) and Kevin Nash (known as Deisel). They were introduced to WCW fans as invaders that were "starting a war". Many of their fans from the WWF jumped with them. Although they never wrestled at first, Hall and Nash would interfere in shows and appeared on almost every Nitro. Finally their WCW wrestling debut was signed for the "Bash at the Beach" show in July of 1996 where they would team with a mystery "Third Man" to take on three WCW wrestlers. After much speculation the third man turned out to be Hulk Hogan, who turned into a bad guy in one fail swoop , forming the "New World Order". The move got the fans talking and word spread to former fans and the general public sparking massive interest in wrestling again. WCW was the in thing now. Besides the NWO WCW also produced more competitive matches, a 2 hour show compared the the 1 hour RAW, edgier storylines with less cartoonish wrestlers, and even gave away the results of WWF's pretaped shows. WCW's Nitro beat WWF's RAW in the ratings constantly giving the WWF competition it had never seen before.
Away from the big two, several small wrestling promotions were spring up. The most visible was a company based out of Philidelphia that started in 1993 as a leg of the fledgling NWA. During these years however they set themselves apart from mainstream wresting. They quickly dumped the NWA afilliation and became known as Extreme Championship Wrestling, or ECW, headed up by former WCW wrestling manager Paul Heyman. Heyman's vision was totally different from what WCW or the WWF were offering with drastically more violence and blood, sexual storylines, along with great mat wrestling action and bringing in stars from Mexico and Japan. As this company grew and got more exposure through syndication, it gained the notice from both WWF and WCW alike. Vince soon started funding ECW financially to create new stars of the future (kept secret as not to destroy ECW's image of being anti establishment) and WCW was raiding talent through any means necessary. ECW soon became a breading ground for stars that the big two would use against each other.
With WCW's programming dominating the WWF, and the WWF quickly losing money hand over fist, changes had to be made. The family friendly wrestling company with the simple gimmicks and cartoon violence wasn't winning any fans anymore. Behind the scenes there was a shift in the creative end as Vince Russo and writing partner Ed Ferra emerged with more of a say in the direction of the company. However Jim Cornette, long time wrestling manager and promoter, also was a major role in the company's creative end. While Cornette stuck to the old ways of wrestling's past and tradition, Russo knew that the WWF needed an overhaul. The front runner of this new attitude was "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Austin had been wrestling since 1990 and had been in WCW for a number of years before being fired. He spent some time in ECW before being brought into the WWF in early 1996. A few gimmick changes later and Austin was now a foul mouthed redneck from Texas and the fans were eating it up. A famous promo at the end of the 1996 "King of the Ring" event in June of 1996 launched him into stardom. Along with Austin, stars like the Undertaker, Vader, Shawn Michaels, and a returning Bret Hart were slowly starting the push for more edgier storylines. RAW shows now featured more adult language, beautiful women such as Sunny and Sable, Blood and more violence, even to the degree where on one particular episode of RAW, and injured Brian Pillman pulled a gun on Austin during an interview at his own house. The incident nearly got RAW kicked off the air, but the intentions were shown that the WWF wasn't going to lay back any longer. Eventually the WWF abandoned the format of RAW being live only once a month and switched to a 2 hour show with them being live almost every week. The matches were more competitive and the action was much heavier. The silly gimmicks of the early 90's were giving way to much more adult themed wrestlers like the Nation of Domination ( a take on the Nation of Islam), the sexually ambiguous Golddust, amongst others. However with all these changes, WCW still won the ratings war through 1996 and 1997. The 1997 installment of Wrestlemania was the lowest rated Wrestlemania in it's 13 year history. WCW was still making money with the NWO storyline (by now had ballooned to nearly half the roster and two different factions) and the emergence of Goldberg as a new star within the company.
In late 1997 however, a strange incident helped level the playing field. After losing the WWF title in early 1996 Bret Hart had taken time off as his contract expried. A bidding war broke out to secure the services of Hart and the end result was Bret being signed to a multimillion dollar contract good for 20 to the WWF. However with WCW winning the ratings war and WWF faltering badly in 1996 and 1997 it was becoming apprent the WWF could not afford to keep their end of the deal. Starting soon after Bret won the WWF title back in August of 1997 Vince began to push to have some of the money deferred for future dates when they would be more stable that Bret refused. The end result was Vince purposefully violating the contract and letting Hart negotiate with WCW. As Bret was finishing his run, backstage conflict with Shawn Michaels led to a negotiation breakdown of how Bret would lose the title. This lead to a match in early November of 1997 between Michaels and Hart where Vince personally changed the ending of the match on the spot handing the title to Michaels and booting Hart from the company in what was known as the "Montreal Incident". As word of the double cross reached the fan base interest in the fallout brought in a bigger audience from fans. Soon McMahon was positioned as the power hungry WWF President and Steve Austin was the anti establishment hero. With money being freed from no longer having to pay Bret's contract and a top level feud that people were paying attention to the WWF started running neck and neck with WCW. This culminated in Austin winning the WWF title from Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 14, whose ratings were 3 times what they had been the year before. The WWF had finally caught up with WCW and touched off what was known as the "Attitude Era" of the WWF from a phrase coined by a commercial the WWF produced for the Superbowl that year.
As all this was going on WCW was beginning to falter. Even though they had won the ratings war the company had amassed a growing financial debt under Eric Bischoff. WCW's programming with the NWO, false finishes and bait and switch tatics were getting stale with fans at a growing rate. What any fans thought would have been a defining moment for the company in the Starrcade 1997 world title match between Hulk Hogan and Sting, who hadn't wrestled or even spoke on tv for the last15 months instead was a confusing and nonsensical ending that disappointed many fans, and when a rematch was made for the February show many fans saw this as a grab for more money. As the WWF was making ground, WCW was slipping with a chaotic backstage scene. Not only did WCW cost itself a lot of money by giving away the biggest match they had to give in Goldberg V/S Hogan for the world title on free TV but there were other incidents like wrestlers appeared on TV intoxicated, Whole rosters would be brought to shows but only half would be used, Scripts for shows were still being worked on as shows were taking place, but the most visible incident occurred in October of 1998 when the Halloween Havoc pay per view was shut off 1 minute into the main event. This forced WCW to refund customers who had purchased the show, not only ruining the relationship with many of it's fan base but also costing the company millions of dollars it couldn't afford to lose. Then in December of 1998 and Janurary of 1999 a string of incidents that turned the tide in the WWF's favor for good. In later 1998, Kevin Nash had been given booking power within WCW. He then proceeded to position himself as the top star of the company by winning a 60 man battle royal in November in his home state of Michigan and leading to himself being the opponent for Goldberg in the 1998 installment of Starrcade. Goldberg had been a shining star in WCW as he had been marketed with an undefeated streak lasting well over a year. The Fans were enthralled as Goldberg flattened opponent after opponent sometimes in seconds and building an undefeated streak over the course of over a year. This all lead up to the match with Nash. What followed was a contrived mess of a match and Nash being the first man to beat Goldberg and made himself the world champion. 2 weeks later a rematch was promised but as had become the costum of the company at the time they did not deliver. Going head up against a pretaped RAW where Mick Foley would win the WWF title (and WCW announcer Tony Schivone making the infamous "That'll put butts in the seats" remark) fans changed the channel immediately. Meanwhile on the WCW show Goldberg was being detained by police as part of a storyline and Hulk Hogan stepped up to take his place after being away from the show for many months. The match began but soon Hogan poked Nash with one finger and Nash laid down letting Hogan pin him for the title and reforming the new NWO. This incident ,Now known as "The fingerpoke of doom" led to a permanent fall in the ratings of the Nitro show that WCW never recovered from. Soon after this incident the debt acquired by WCW was deemed to much and Eric Bishcoff was terminated from his position as the head of the company.
The WWF was going full steam during the later part of the decade. with Steve Austin, the Undertaker, his storyline brother Kane, the aforementioned Mick Foley, and the Rock all emerging as big stars that were leading the company. The WWF's programming was outselling WCW's faltering ratings and buyrates and the company was riding a high never scene before. Even with attacks from several watchdog and parental rights groups, and the tragic death of Bret Hart's brother Owen during a live Pay Per View event in may of 1999 didn't slow down the company's success. Soon WCW wrestlers were making the jump to the WWF as Vince and company were now in a position to make better offers to frustrated wrestlers who were being held back by the top stars of WCW such as Hogan, Hall, and Nash. Even with the loss of head writer Vince Russo, and Steve Austin taking a year off starting in November of 1999 for neck surgery the WWF was still wining the war hand over fist with the new stars from WCW and ECW, along with it's established top guys like Foley, the Rock, former WCW champion the Big Show, and Triple H were headling shows that were easily outselling WCW events.
As the new millennium came the Monday Night Wars had very one sided. WCW's ratings were only 1/3 to 1/2 of what they had been only a few years before. Turmoil in the creative and business end of the company lead to a number of people taking over the head creative decision to try to right the company and had failed. Vince Russo had been brought in but his ideas tended to be very chaotic and were often viewed as pale imitations of ideas he had made in the WWF. He left after only 3 months after a conflict with others in the company only to come back in early 2000 along with former WCW head Eric Bishcoff to run the company but that to failed. Russo's run as the creative head of WCW was marked with nonsensical storylines that were hard to keep track of, world title runs by not only himself but also actor David Arquette. The banishment of Hulk Hogan after a worked/shoot storyline went wrong leading to a lawsuit, several people leaving the company for the WWF and the ratings for WCW programming dropping sharply. Russo left the company in late 1999 after suffering a concussion but by that time rumors of Turner selling off WCW had begun to spring up.
At the same time the small ECW promotion had seen it's highest visibility to date. It's pay per views were being bought all over the country and it had signed a national weekly cable television deal in the late summer of 1999. However it's biggest success was also leading to it's downfall. The Television deal with the Nashville Network was very one sided. ECW was paying for the time slot and the upscale in production to continue to be aired on the network. TNN only advertised the show during the show itself and was treated more as an experiment for a later deal with the WWF. When the WWF finalized the deal to start airing RAW on the network, most thought it was the end of ECW, but with the secret money Vince was giving them, ECW was allowed to stay on the network. ECW however openly criticized TNN for their practices and the relationship was growing worse. It all came to an end in early 2001 when TNN canceled the ECW television show. After losing most of it's money in the TNN deal, and most of it's top stars to the WWF and WCW, ECW folded shortly after it's last pay per view show in January of 2001.
WCW's future was in just as much doubt at this time as well. After being bought out by computer company AOL, Ted Turner was no longer in a position of power within his own company. WCW was being offered up for sale to the right bidder. Eric Bishcoff and a group of investors entered the race along with the WWF, Southern promoter Jerry Jarrett, and a few international media outlets in a bidding war. After some reworked deals to lighten the dubt the company had amassed over the years Bishcoff came out the winner. With the sale all but official however this left an interesting situation for many of WCW's top stars who had been signed under guaranteed contracts with Time Warner. They had a choice of either sitting out the rest of their contracts and continue to get paid without wrestling during this time, or having their contracts bought out and taking paycuts for new contracts elsewhere. Many of WCW's elite chose the former. Under Bishcoff's creative influence the company was set up for the trnasition away from Time Warner. Kevin Nash, Goldberg, Sting, and other talent were taken off TV in the final months of 200 and early 2001. The cruiserweights were given more of a focus as well as young talent fresh out of WCW's wrestling school. However right before the transition was to be complete Time Warner cancelled WCW programming on their networks and Bischoff was forced to pull out of the deal a mere two weeks before it was to be finalized. Many rumors sprung up leading to the final WCW Nitro. The WWF then bought out WCW for a much lesser price than what Bischoff was offered and took control of the company for the last Nitro to air in March of 2001.
Vince McMahon had finally realized his dream of dominating the Wrestling market and put all of his competition out of business. But this is where things crashed. Although many in the WWF thought that being the monopoly would lead to increasing business, in fact it lead to just the opposite almost immediately. The RAW after Wrestlemania and a mere 2 weeks after the close of WCW, sank in the ratings lower than expected. Negotiations to bring WCW back as a separate brand with a 2 hour show on Saturday nights and there own house shows stalled for months before finally failing, leading to the one sided "invasion" storyline that was viewed as one of the biggest missed opportunities of all time in wrestling. Vince spent most of his attention away from the WWF looking after his failed football league the XFL ad the creative control was handed to his daughter Stephanie who put a lot more ephasis on her then boyfriend and future husband Triple H before he was sidelined for the better part of 6 months with a torn quad. With the invasion storyline ended in November of 2001, the WWF was left with a glut of stars aquired from ECW's closure and WCW's buyout the WWF had what was called the brand split where the Monday Raw and Thursday Smackdown shows would each have their own crew of wrestlers. The "WWF Draft" held the week after Wrestlemania 18 the same day where Steve Austin had walked out of the promotion after a dispute with the writing of the company. The brand split was marketed as competition between the new brands but fans knew better and ratings dipped. Wrestling was no longer the it thing anymore and the WWF (now renamed the WWE after being on the losing end of a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund) was starting to suffer. As the decade rolled on the WWE tried many different things to reignite interest but nothing seemed to work. They tried promoting new stars such as Brock Lesnar, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and other to fill the void left as the stars of the attitude era left. Even bringing in top WCW wrestlers like the NWO, Scott Stiener, and Goldberg didn't help as these stars were often booked to look inferior to the WWE stars (most noticably Triple H who beat most of the WCW top stars during this time). Eventually the decision was made to push stars like John Cena, Batista, Randy Orton and a number of others but these stars didn't bring in fans as the company once did a decade before. Ratings for the shows dipped lower and lower until they were less than 1/2 the numbers they once carried. The fans of the Attitude era had grown bored and the tragic and sudden death of Eddie Guerrero and the Murder/Suicide of Chris Benoit and his family put a dark cloud over the promotion for years, even to the point of another government investigation (that was eventually dropped).
In recent years the WWE has made a renewed push to try and establish itself an an entertainment company. Music, Movies, and Television ventures all were produced in the WWE with little success. The WWE then further alienated much of it's audience when it shifted it rating of the promotion away from the TV-14 content to the kid Friendly PG content (many say this was brought on by an impending bid at politics by Linda McMahon and a toy deal with Matell). There has been a push from smaller companies to provide alternatives to the WWE such as Jeff Jarett's TNA (founded in 2002 using many stars not picked up when WCW closed) and Deleware based Ring of Honor, but these companies have a fraction of the exposure and resources to make true competition for the WWE.
As we come to the present the monopoly that Vince always wanted has been around now for over a decade. The heights of the Attitude era now a long memory with a good portion of the audience not even been born when it was around. As Vince grows older he is slowly shifting power to his son in law Triple H, who has taken a much larger backstage role in the last few years. The WWE is working on a 24 hour network and struggling to recover it's failing films division with no method in sight.
Will things change? That's anyone's guess but as history has shown us things can change with the drop of a hat.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Brief history of United States Wrestling Part 2: Rise of the McMahon
When we last left off it was in the later months of 1983. Around the country several of the wrestling territories around the country were doing very well for themselves business wise. Jim Crockett's Mid Atalntic, Fritz Von Erich's World Class, Bill Watt's Mid south, Jim Barnett's Georgia, and Verne Gagne's AWA were all making money with top level feuds and big names people wanted to see. With territories riding the wave of television syndication and Cable TV distribution that made their visibility much larger than it had ever been before.
However up in the Northeast part of the country things were changing. Unbeknownst to most people Vincent Jess McMahon was suffering from a very aggressive form of cancer. Fans of course were not aware of this, but plans were being put into motion for his successor within the company. Vincent originally was to pass the torch to long time Wrestler and office employee Gorilla Monsoon, but was offered to sell the stock and control of his company to his own son, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, and his group of investors known as Titan Sports. The elder had no idea of the plans his junior had in mind not only for his father's business but the business as a whole. The company was sold and the effect was almost immediate.
Vince Kennedy McMahon was never interested in operating the WWF as it had been before. Vince had a vastly different approach to pro wrestling than his father. He wanted to distance himself from the stigma of the good ol' southern boys wrasslin' and invent himself into an entertainment mogul. He rarely if ever used the term "pro Wrestling" instead saying his company was "Sports Entertainment". He openly admitted wrestling matches were predetermined to avoid the authority of local sports commissions and athletic event taxes and liscencing.Vince had a plan and knew each and every step he had to take to dominate the business like no one had done before. As the ink of the bill of sale dried Vince immediately pulled the WWF out of the NWA. Although mostly a formality, Vince never wanted to have to answer to a governing body to tell him how to run his business. Once on his own Vince's strategy was that if he was going to run shows all over the country he need big stars from around the country to appeal to different fans. His first big step was to offer to buy out Verne Gagne and the AWA, his biggest single competitor.Verne was open to the idea but told Vince that it would take time to "get his ducks in a row" with his fellow promoters and syndication partners before a sale could go through. That wasn't Vince McMahon. Abandoning the plans of a buyout Vince shifted his focus. He first went after the AWA's top talent. The first big acquisition was lead AWA interviewer "Mean" Gene Oakerland but the biggest occurring in late December/early January when Hulk Hogan appeared on WWF TV. Although pushed as the popular top face of the company and having a string of money making matches with Nick Bockwinkel that sold out show after show for the company, Hulk had become very disgruntled with the AWA. Depending on whose version of events you believe, either Verne was too set in his old School ways to put the title on a "sideshow attraction" with no amateur credentials (The Gagne side of the story) or that Verne demanded Hulk become champion but get a 50% cut of his merchandise and any money he made in an upcoming Japanese tour (Hogan's side of events). Either way after a very controversial match with Bockwinkel where Nick retained the title on a technicality Hogan went to Japan for a short tour before the planned return to the AWA to face Bockwinkel in a series of matches starting around Christmas in 1983. However Hogan was contacted by Vince and given an offer to come to the WWF and made into THEIR champion and top star and also offered an extra bonus to Hogan if he left the AWA without any notice (it was standard practic in those days for a wrestler to give his notice either 4 or 6 weeks before leaving depending on their place on the card). Hogan bolted from the AWA and Vince quickly transferred the WWF title from his father's longtime top face Bob Backlund (who had been champion since 1978 and had never been the draw that previous champions had been) to the hated Iranian Iron Sheik. The process was completed on Janurary 23, 1984. Ironically on a card kicked off with a ten bell salute in tribute to Vincent McMahon Sr. who had passed away during the week, Hulk Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik to win the WWF Title and offically kick off the Vince McMahon tenure of the WWF. With Hogan leading the way Vince went after every AWA wrestling star he could get his hands on with promises of bigger money and bonuses for leaving their former jobs without warning. Besides taking over their TV syndication slots and running house shows in their territory, Vince took a lot of the AWA talent to run cards in the very same places those wrestlers became famous. Jessie Ventura, The Vachons, Ken Patera, Jim Brunzell, David Shultz and Bobby Heenan soon jumped ship.
With his biggest star firmly in place Vince used 1984 to recruit other stars and damage his rivals as well. After a series of controversial incidents the relationship between the USA Network and Joe Blanchard's SCW promotion, Vince gladly stepped in to put his programming on a nationally aired cable network not only with a standard wrestling show All American Wrestling, but also a more talk show based program called Tuesday Night Titans that was more like the Tonight Show than a wrestling program. With a national outlet for his wrestlers to go along with his nationally syndicated show Vince started raiding other territories for their top stars. He began raiding Jim Crockett's Mid Atlantic territory, Signing Roddy Piper, Greg Valentine. Sgt. Slaughter and even booker George Scott right out from under Jim's nose. He acquired the popular Junkyard Dog from Mid South Wrestling and bought out Stu Hart's Stampede wrestling based in Calgary, Canada to get their 4 top stars (Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, Dynamite Kid, and Davey Boy Smith). Vince even tried to make a grab of Fritz Von Erich's eldest son and top star David, however David passed away before any real deal could have been made.
However Vince's biggest, and most infamous, conquest that year was unveiled on July 14, 1984. Now with the USA network in his pocket Vince sought out to eliminate the only other Wrestling show on cable TV, Georgia Championship Wrestling on TBS. Vince secretly contacted GCW majority shareholders Jack and Gerry Brisco and offered them a huge payday and office jobs for as long as they wanted if they sold their controlling interest in the company to Vince. The Briscos both jumped at the offer and on the day dubbed "Black Saturday" Vince McMahon himself walked into the studios of TBS. Promising the "Big leagues of Professional Wrestling" Vince then presented a show that was not filled with the live studio matches the GCW fans had come to know, but pretaped matches that themselves had been shown already on other WWF programs. Viewers were outraged and complained in record numbers to TBS offices. Despite the backlash the shot had been heard by the other promoters in the country that this new kid meant business. He then lead the WWF into the "Rock N Wrestling" connection as the WWF tied into the popular rock music scene of the mid 80's. WWF personalities appeared in music videos and on MTV while stars like Mr. T from the popular show The A-Team and top music artist Cyndi Lauper appeared in WWF programming and storylines. The WWF held two specials that aired on MTV in the "Brawl to End it all" and "The War to settle the Score" both made the WWF the "it" thing of 1984.
Vince's efforts culminated on March 31, 1985 with the presentation of the first Wrestlemania. The event was carried nationally on Closed Circuit and even a few early home Pay Per View systems. The event was headlined by Hogan teaming up with Mr. T to take on the hated Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff with New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, entertainer Liberace, and Muhammad Ali all appearing on the show. Vince followed this monumental event by scoring a series of specials called "Saturday Night's Main Event" that aired 5 or 6 times a year on NBC, returning wrestling to network Television for the first time in 30 years.
While Vince was taking his product and wrestling in general to levels it had never seen, many of the promoters around the country were left scrambling having never seen this level of competition before. After the "Black Saturday" incident Ted Turner turned to Bill Watts to provide "alternative" programming to cater to the former fans of GCW, giving Mid South Wrestling a national spotlight. Eventually Ole Anderson, Jim Barnett, and those wrestlers who didn't join the WWF after the Georgia Wrestling buyout formed Championship Wrestling from Georgia and given their own slot on TBS as well. Jim Crockett, having lost his main creative force, brought in Florida Championship Wrestling star and lead booker Dusty Rhodes in to fill the void. Rhodes brought in several wrestlers to the Mid Atlantic Area to fill the void left from Vince's talent raid. Fritz Von Erich, despite losing his son and top star David, continued to expand WCCW's extensive television coverage and Verne Gagne still made money in the AWA despite their losses. Fritz, Crockett, and Gagne came together in an effort to counter Vince's programming by producing "Pro Wrestling USA" a show spotlighting stars from various territories as well, leading to the big "Superclash" stadium show presenting top stars from not only the territories involved but also Mexico and Japan. However the agreement soon fell apart but the positive from this was Verne gained a weekly television timeslot on the ESPN network. Crockett however recovered quickly when Vince gave up on the TBS venture, realizing that he had no interest in bowing to the demands of Ted Turner. Turner then sold the timeslot to Jim Crockett who then took over the reborn Georgia wrestling program to put himself as the biggest competitor to Vince and the largest member of the NWA.
With the glooves off and the boundaries of the NWA and the territorial system fading away, Pro wrestling became a much different landscape. The top promoters in the country expanded their areas not only to compete with Vince but also to bring in more money for their own. Jim Crockett progressively started expanding his territory farther into the country by either working with fellow NWA promoters or in the case of the Central States promotion, buying them out entirely. Bill Watts took his group into Texas and Oklahoma, raiding Fritz Von Erich's territory for stars before ranaming Mid South wrestling into the Universal Wrestling Federation in march of 1986 and splitting from the NWA. Although he stayed within his territorial bounds physically, Fritz Von Erich's WCCW also spilt from the NWA, and their TV show was being broadcast all over the world. And even after the death of Eddie Graham, the Florida Championship Wrestling promotion put on the Syndicated "Battle of the Belts" show that was shown on many stations around the country.
But all this expansion came at great cost. While these promotions were willing to compete, finnancially they were unable to keep up with the demands. Bill Watts UWF was heralded for it's top notch wrestling programming but behind the scenes the company was losing money hand over fist. Bill held out as long as he could but was finally unable to keep the company going and sold the UWF to Jim Crockett in early 1987. Soon WCCW, Florida Championship wrestling, and even the AWA were all facing financial crisis. The Florida promotion saw the loss of most of it's stars to Jim Crockett in early 1987 and what was left of the promotion was bought outright by 1988. The AWA and WCCW, seeing their promotions in trouble turned to one of the few promoters that was still profiting well in Memphis promoter Jerry Jarrett. Jarrett's CWA, unlike many other promotions, stayed relatively unchanged during the expansion with such stars as Jerry "The King" Lawler, Bill Dundee, and Jerry's son Jeff. Verne, Jerry, and Fritz's son Kevin and Kerry (who had control after their father sold his interest to his sons) entered an agreement of their own where AWA, CWA, and WCCW stars would appear on each other's shows. The headliner of this agreement was AWA and CWA Champion Lawler facing WCCW champion Kerry Von Erich in a series of Unification matches. This agreement culminated in "Superclash 3" ppv in December of 1988.
As this was going on Jim Crockett's NWA and Vince's WWF were in a competitive race to one up each other. When Crockett presented Starrcade 1985 from both Georgia and North Carolina, Vince attempted to one up Jim by presenting Wrestlemania 2 from 3 locations. The attempt was a failure financially but it didn't deter Vince at all. Crockett entered the ppv market with the 1987 edition of Starrcade featuring Ron Garvin V/S Ric Flair as the main event from Chicago. However Vince, not wanting competition in the Pay Per View market produced the first Survivor Series pay per veiw, featuring a 10 man team elimination match with Andre the Giant and Hulk hogan as a play off of their monumental Wrestlemania 3 encounter. Vince strong armed cable companies into carrying his show over Crockett's and Starrcade was a commercial flop. Crockett tried again in January of 1988 with the "Bunkhouse Stampede Finals" event, but was scuttled once again when Vince presented the first royal Rumble event on the USA network. Crockett shot back when he presented the first Clash of the Champions special on TBS opposite Wrestlemania 4 and Crockett came out the winner that night as he beat Vince's viewers 4 to 1.
But this took a great toll on Jim Crockett's finances. Despite selling out show after show his company was millions of dollars in debt. Ted Turner, who had long been a wrestling fan came in and a deal was worked out where Turner would buy out the company. With the corporate take over Vince quickly stepped in and offered many NWA stars contracts, snatching up Barry Windham, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson and a few others. Once the promotion was sold tensions between top star Ric Flair (turner's favorite wrestler) and booker Dusty Rhodes grew to a head with Dusty being let go from the company soon after there Starrcade 1988 event in December.
Things were quickly falling apart for the AWA as well. The Superclash event was a failure financially and matters were made worse when Verne kept what money he had for himself and refused to pay either of his promotional partners from the event. Soon Jarrett and the Von Erich's pulled out of the deal with Jarrett buying out the World Class promotion and renaming the combined promotion the USWA in 1989. Verne, having burned his last bridge, suffered. After Lawler quit the AWA and vacated title Verne scrambled to reestablish his company with what talent he hadn't lost not only in the co-promotional deal falling apart but from years of talent raids from Vince. Having lost both Texas and Memphis as places to show cards Verne at one point was reduced to filming TV shows in a small studio with no wrestling fans present (explained as a way to prevent interference). Verne valiantly fought on until the summer of 1990 when his promotion had no more money to promote shows anymore. After his material for fresh TV shows dried up, Verne presented a few cobbled together episodes using old footage overdubbed to sound more current before abandoning the concept and showing older matches in a "Best of" series of shows before the AWA faded completely by early 1991.
By 1990 the Wrestling landscape was very different. In just 6 years the Wrestling in the US went from the very many to the very few. No longer were their Territories, but you were now either one of the "Big Two" or you were an "independent" promotion. While few survived, many were left behind. However the new decade would bring challenges of its own.
However up in the Northeast part of the country things were changing. Unbeknownst to most people Vincent Jess McMahon was suffering from a very aggressive form of cancer. Fans of course were not aware of this, but plans were being put into motion for his successor within the company. Vincent originally was to pass the torch to long time Wrestler and office employee Gorilla Monsoon, but was offered to sell the stock and control of his company to his own son, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, and his group of investors known as Titan Sports. The elder had no idea of the plans his junior had in mind not only for his father's business but the business as a whole. The company was sold and the effect was almost immediate.
Vince Kennedy McMahon was never interested in operating the WWF as it had been before. Vince had a vastly different approach to pro wrestling than his father. He wanted to distance himself from the stigma of the good ol' southern boys wrasslin' and invent himself into an entertainment mogul. He rarely if ever used the term "pro Wrestling" instead saying his company was "Sports Entertainment". He openly admitted wrestling matches were predetermined to avoid the authority of local sports commissions and athletic event taxes and liscencing.Vince had a plan and knew each and every step he had to take to dominate the business like no one had done before. As the ink of the bill of sale dried Vince immediately pulled the WWF out of the NWA. Although mostly a formality, Vince never wanted to have to answer to a governing body to tell him how to run his business. Once on his own Vince's strategy was that if he was going to run shows all over the country he need big stars from around the country to appeal to different fans. His first big step was to offer to buy out Verne Gagne and the AWA, his biggest single competitor.Verne was open to the idea but told Vince that it would take time to "get his ducks in a row" with his fellow promoters and syndication partners before a sale could go through. That wasn't Vince McMahon. Abandoning the plans of a buyout Vince shifted his focus. He first went after the AWA's top talent. The first big acquisition was lead AWA interviewer "Mean" Gene Oakerland but the biggest occurring in late December/early January when Hulk Hogan appeared on WWF TV. Although pushed as the popular top face of the company and having a string of money making matches with Nick Bockwinkel that sold out show after show for the company, Hulk had become very disgruntled with the AWA. Depending on whose version of events you believe, either Verne was too set in his old School ways to put the title on a "sideshow attraction" with no amateur credentials (The Gagne side of the story) or that Verne demanded Hulk become champion but get a 50% cut of his merchandise and any money he made in an upcoming Japanese tour (Hogan's side of events). Either way after a very controversial match with Bockwinkel where Nick retained the title on a technicality Hogan went to Japan for a short tour before the planned return to the AWA to face Bockwinkel in a series of matches starting around Christmas in 1983. However Hogan was contacted by Vince and given an offer to come to the WWF and made into THEIR champion and top star and also offered an extra bonus to Hogan if he left the AWA without any notice (it was standard practic in those days for a wrestler to give his notice either 4 or 6 weeks before leaving depending on their place on the card). Hogan bolted from the AWA and Vince quickly transferred the WWF title from his father's longtime top face Bob Backlund (who had been champion since 1978 and had never been the draw that previous champions had been) to the hated Iranian Iron Sheik. The process was completed on Janurary 23, 1984. Ironically on a card kicked off with a ten bell salute in tribute to Vincent McMahon Sr. who had passed away during the week, Hulk Hogan defeated the Iron Sheik to win the WWF Title and offically kick off the Vince McMahon tenure of the WWF. With Hogan leading the way Vince went after every AWA wrestling star he could get his hands on with promises of bigger money and bonuses for leaving their former jobs without warning. Besides taking over their TV syndication slots and running house shows in their territory, Vince took a lot of the AWA talent to run cards in the very same places those wrestlers became famous. Jessie Ventura, The Vachons, Ken Patera, Jim Brunzell, David Shultz and Bobby Heenan soon jumped ship.
With his biggest star firmly in place Vince used 1984 to recruit other stars and damage his rivals as well. After a series of controversial incidents the relationship between the USA Network and Joe Blanchard's SCW promotion, Vince gladly stepped in to put his programming on a nationally aired cable network not only with a standard wrestling show All American Wrestling, but also a more talk show based program called Tuesday Night Titans that was more like the Tonight Show than a wrestling program. With a national outlet for his wrestlers to go along with his nationally syndicated show Vince started raiding other territories for their top stars. He began raiding Jim Crockett's Mid Atlantic territory, Signing Roddy Piper, Greg Valentine. Sgt. Slaughter and even booker George Scott right out from under Jim's nose. He acquired the popular Junkyard Dog from Mid South Wrestling and bought out Stu Hart's Stampede wrestling based in Calgary, Canada to get their 4 top stars (Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, Dynamite Kid, and Davey Boy Smith). Vince even tried to make a grab of Fritz Von Erich's eldest son and top star David, however David passed away before any real deal could have been made.
However Vince's biggest, and most infamous, conquest that year was unveiled on July 14, 1984. Now with the USA network in his pocket Vince sought out to eliminate the only other Wrestling show on cable TV, Georgia Championship Wrestling on TBS. Vince secretly contacted GCW majority shareholders Jack and Gerry Brisco and offered them a huge payday and office jobs for as long as they wanted if they sold their controlling interest in the company to Vince. The Briscos both jumped at the offer and on the day dubbed "Black Saturday" Vince McMahon himself walked into the studios of TBS. Promising the "Big leagues of Professional Wrestling" Vince then presented a show that was not filled with the live studio matches the GCW fans had come to know, but pretaped matches that themselves had been shown already on other WWF programs. Viewers were outraged and complained in record numbers to TBS offices. Despite the backlash the shot had been heard by the other promoters in the country that this new kid meant business. He then lead the WWF into the "Rock N Wrestling" connection as the WWF tied into the popular rock music scene of the mid 80's. WWF personalities appeared in music videos and on MTV while stars like Mr. T from the popular show The A-Team and top music artist Cyndi Lauper appeared in WWF programming and storylines. The WWF held two specials that aired on MTV in the "Brawl to End it all" and "The War to settle the Score" both made the WWF the "it" thing of 1984.
Vince's efforts culminated on March 31, 1985 with the presentation of the first Wrestlemania. The event was carried nationally on Closed Circuit and even a few early home Pay Per View systems. The event was headlined by Hogan teaming up with Mr. T to take on the hated Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff with New York Yankees manager Billy Martin, entertainer Liberace, and Muhammad Ali all appearing on the show. Vince followed this monumental event by scoring a series of specials called "Saturday Night's Main Event" that aired 5 or 6 times a year on NBC, returning wrestling to network Television for the first time in 30 years.
While Vince was taking his product and wrestling in general to levels it had never seen, many of the promoters around the country were left scrambling having never seen this level of competition before. After the "Black Saturday" incident Ted Turner turned to Bill Watts to provide "alternative" programming to cater to the former fans of GCW, giving Mid South Wrestling a national spotlight. Eventually Ole Anderson, Jim Barnett, and those wrestlers who didn't join the WWF after the Georgia Wrestling buyout formed Championship Wrestling from Georgia and given their own slot on TBS as well. Jim Crockett, having lost his main creative force, brought in Florida Championship Wrestling star and lead booker Dusty Rhodes in to fill the void. Rhodes brought in several wrestlers to the Mid Atlantic Area to fill the void left from Vince's talent raid. Fritz Von Erich, despite losing his son and top star David, continued to expand WCCW's extensive television coverage and Verne Gagne still made money in the AWA despite their losses. Fritz, Crockett, and Gagne came together in an effort to counter Vince's programming by producing "Pro Wrestling USA" a show spotlighting stars from various territories as well, leading to the big "Superclash" stadium show presenting top stars from not only the territories involved but also Mexico and Japan. However the agreement soon fell apart but the positive from this was Verne gained a weekly television timeslot on the ESPN network. Crockett however recovered quickly when Vince gave up on the TBS venture, realizing that he had no interest in bowing to the demands of Ted Turner. Turner then sold the timeslot to Jim Crockett who then took over the reborn Georgia wrestling program to put himself as the biggest competitor to Vince and the largest member of the NWA.
With the glooves off and the boundaries of the NWA and the territorial system fading away, Pro wrestling became a much different landscape. The top promoters in the country expanded their areas not only to compete with Vince but also to bring in more money for their own. Jim Crockett progressively started expanding his territory farther into the country by either working with fellow NWA promoters or in the case of the Central States promotion, buying them out entirely. Bill Watts took his group into Texas and Oklahoma, raiding Fritz Von Erich's territory for stars before ranaming Mid South wrestling into the Universal Wrestling Federation in march of 1986 and splitting from the NWA. Although he stayed within his territorial bounds physically, Fritz Von Erich's WCCW also spilt from the NWA, and their TV show was being broadcast all over the world. And even after the death of Eddie Graham, the Florida Championship Wrestling promotion put on the Syndicated "Battle of the Belts" show that was shown on many stations around the country.
But all this expansion came at great cost. While these promotions were willing to compete, finnancially they were unable to keep up with the demands. Bill Watts UWF was heralded for it's top notch wrestling programming but behind the scenes the company was losing money hand over fist. Bill held out as long as he could but was finally unable to keep the company going and sold the UWF to Jim Crockett in early 1987. Soon WCCW, Florida Championship wrestling, and even the AWA were all facing financial crisis. The Florida promotion saw the loss of most of it's stars to Jim Crockett in early 1987 and what was left of the promotion was bought outright by 1988. The AWA and WCCW, seeing their promotions in trouble turned to one of the few promoters that was still profiting well in Memphis promoter Jerry Jarrett. Jarrett's CWA, unlike many other promotions, stayed relatively unchanged during the expansion with such stars as Jerry "The King" Lawler, Bill Dundee, and Jerry's son Jeff. Verne, Jerry, and Fritz's son Kevin and Kerry (who had control after their father sold his interest to his sons) entered an agreement of their own where AWA, CWA, and WCCW stars would appear on each other's shows. The headliner of this agreement was AWA and CWA Champion Lawler facing WCCW champion Kerry Von Erich in a series of Unification matches. This agreement culminated in "Superclash 3" ppv in December of 1988.
As this was going on Jim Crockett's NWA and Vince's WWF were in a competitive race to one up each other. When Crockett presented Starrcade 1985 from both Georgia and North Carolina, Vince attempted to one up Jim by presenting Wrestlemania 2 from 3 locations. The attempt was a failure financially but it didn't deter Vince at all. Crockett entered the ppv market with the 1987 edition of Starrcade featuring Ron Garvin V/S Ric Flair as the main event from Chicago. However Vince, not wanting competition in the Pay Per View market produced the first Survivor Series pay per veiw, featuring a 10 man team elimination match with Andre the Giant and Hulk hogan as a play off of their monumental Wrestlemania 3 encounter. Vince strong armed cable companies into carrying his show over Crockett's and Starrcade was a commercial flop. Crockett tried again in January of 1988 with the "Bunkhouse Stampede Finals" event, but was scuttled once again when Vince presented the first royal Rumble event on the USA network. Crockett shot back when he presented the first Clash of the Champions special on TBS opposite Wrestlemania 4 and Crockett came out the winner that night as he beat Vince's viewers 4 to 1.
But this took a great toll on Jim Crockett's finances. Despite selling out show after show his company was millions of dollars in debt. Ted Turner, who had long been a wrestling fan came in and a deal was worked out where Turner would buy out the company. With the corporate take over Vince quickly stepped in and offered many NWA stars contracts, snatching up Barry Windham, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson and a few others. Once the promotion was sold tensions between top star Ric Flair (turner's favorite wrestler) and booker Dusty Rhodes grew to a head with Dusty being let go from the company soon after there Starrcade 1988 event in December.
Things were quickly falling apart for the AWA as well. The Superclash event was a failure financially and matters were made worse when Verne kept what money he had for himself and refused to pay either of his promotional partners from the event. Soon Jarrett and the Von Erich's pulled out of the deal with Jarrett buying out the World Class promotion and renaming the combined promotion the USWA in 1989. Verne, having burned his last bridge, suffered. After Lawler quit the AWA and vacated title Verne scrambled to reestablish his company with what talent he hadn't lost not only in the co-promotional deal falling apart but from years of talent raids from Vince. Having lost both Texas and Memphis as places to show cards Verne at one point was reduced to filming TV shows in a small studio with no wrestling fans present (explained as a way to prevent interference). Verne valiantly fought on until the summer of 1990 when his promotion had no more money to promote shows anymore. After his material for fresh TV shows dried up, Verne presented a few cobbled together episodes using old footage overdubbed to sound more current before abandoning the concept and showing older matches in a "Best of" series of shows before the AWA faded completely by early 1991.
By 1990 the Wrestling landscape was very different. In just 6 years the Wrestling in the US went from the very many to the very few. No longer were their Territories, but you were now either one of the "Big Two" or you were an "independent" promotion. While few survived, many were left behind. However the new decade would bring challenges of its own.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Brief history of United States Wrestling part 1
So after posting my first review I realized in that going over a lot of the old school wrestling stuff, a lot of terms and references to events will pop up more than once. So to provide a bit of context I am putting together this shotgun history of professional wrestling in the United states.
Our story starts in the 1930's. Wrestling at the turn of that century had been very popular but the secret shift from legit competitions to predetermined matches and the media uncovering these shady dealings with promoters along with some very public trials in courts, left the public with a bad taste in it's mouth. As a result the attendence for wrestling shows nosedived. Starting in around 1905 and leading up to this point there was an informal recognition of the "World Champion" but due to polotics of wanting to promote "World Championship" matches in their area to drum up business, the title had become fractured. Promoters from Boston, Michigan, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Kansas City, The New York State Athletic Commission, and the wrestling arm of the National Boxing Ascociation (known as the National Wrestling Ascociation) all lay some sort of claim as having a "World Champion" all during the 30's and into the 40's. With so many versions of the world title it devalued the titles and lead to a lot of confusion amongst fans. But in 1948 a group of people would get together to try to put an end to it.
In 1948 a group of a six of the most influential and powerful Pro wrestling promoters came together for a meeting (spearheaded by Midwest promoter "Pinkie" George). The result of this meeting was the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance. The NWA was a collective effort by these promoters to opeerate under one banner for the better of the business but more importantly to put money in their pockets. Under this new collective these promoters would operate under a set of rules such as they wouldn't operate in each others' territory (area in which they promoted shows), they would do business in trading talent, and more importantly they would recognize one single world champion that would travel to the different territories for limited amounts of time to add business to the shows those promoters operated. These world champions would be determined by a vote of the NWA members during their annual meetings and only with a majority vote would a champion be named.
Once the groundwork was laid down the NWA then had the task of trying to unify all the different version of the world title. Two names emerged from these matches, National Wrestling Alliance World Champion and board member Orville Brown, and National Wrestling Ascociation Champion Lou Thesz. The alliance wanted to put the title on Brown and a unification match was to be held in 1949. However weeks before the match Brown was involved in a horrific car accident and was forced to retire, leading to Thesz being made the NWA Champion (and putting an end basically to the National Wrestling Ascociation).
By 1952 the NWA world title (held by Thesz) was the only Wrestling title left standing in the US. With the NWA the dominant governing body in the country (And soon stretching into Japan, Mexico, and Canada as well) and wrestling's new found popularity thanks to television pro wrestling was seeing a boom in business not seen since the early 1900s. With the "territory system" now in full effect many local TV stations carried some form of wrestling show, since wrestling often times was a ver inexpesive form of programming for TV stations to provide. All they needed was a studio that could seat a few dozen fans, 2 cameras, and maybe a local news personality to call the action. The stations didn't have to pay the wrestlers anything and the wrestling organziation used these show to promote the local house shows (Where the real money was in wrestling). Besides TV on the local level, the nationally viewed Dumont Network also carried a wrestling show as well. Through the 50's pro wrestling and the NWA (by now covering almost all the country and several international organizations as well) reaped the benefits.
But it wasn't to last, at least as it had before. The biggest problem facing the NWA was the investigation into Monopolistic practices by the US government. The NWA was (rightly so) accused of stifling competition, blackballing those from the inudstry who did not conform to their mode of business and several other accusations. A deal was reached in 1956
but the NWA and it's board was very wary not to incite the government again. Not to much longer after this cracks formed in the Alliance. As with any organization with that much power politics and ego disagreements arose over the direction of the World Championship. Since whomever booked the world champion controlled the NWA, there was a lot of struggle and competition for the promoters to push their top wrestlers to win the world title. A major rift was growing with several NWA members backing long time champion Lou Thesz while others (most notably the Stetcher family of the Minnesota Territory) wanted to give the Title to Verne Gagne. Gagne was a former amateur champion who made the 1948 Olympic greco roman wrestling team and had been the head promoter and top star of the Dumont Network's wrestling show. However Gagne didn't garner enough of the NWA's support over fears that the Stetcher's would keep Verne for their own territory. Dismayed over not being able to win the World Title, Verne bought out the Stetcher's and split their territory away from the NWA completely. Taking political and booking control of the newly formed American Wrestling Association Verne named the now current NWA Champion Pat O' Conner the AWA world Champion. O' Conner and the NWA ignored this complelty and Gagne became the champion of his own promotion for the first time. Another major split from the Alliance happened soon after. After a dispute over the result of a match between defending NWA Champion "Nature Boy" Buddy Rodgers and former Champion Lou Thesz. Thesz won the match and the title in a single fall, where world championship matches at the time were the best two of 3 falls. Promoter's in the northeast, lead by second generation promoter Vincent Jess Mcmahon refused to recognize the title change (and the fact that Roidgers was a major draw in the Northeast) split from the NWA and formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation and named Rodgers as their first champion in early 1963. However big the dissagreements though, The now 3 major promotional entities in the United States stayed on relatively friendly terms and although not in direct business with each other stayed out of each others way. Eventually Mcmahon was brought back into the NWA but was allowed to continue to promote the WWWF title as a world title.
As with any fads in Television the Novelty of Wrestling wore out with the national audience. Locally however business was strong with many territories around the country. Besides Gagne's AWA covering the northern Midwest and Vincent Mcmahon's WWF covering the northeast region of the country, several of the NWA terrtories emerged as major players in the 60's and 70's including Jim Crockett's Mid Atlantic Championship wrestling in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland; Bob Geigel's Central States territory based out of Kansas City: Florida Championship Wrestling promoted by Eddie Graham; amongst others. There were a few attempts to compete directly against the NWA, most notably the IWA promotion that was established in direct competition to many NWA territories around the country in 1975. The promotion fell apart within a year and tried to compete against Jim Crockett's territory but came up short and dissipated by 1976.
As the 70's turned into the 80's more players began to make themselves more influential as Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling out of Texas, Bill Watts's Mid South Wrestling, and Joe Blanchard's Southwest Championship Wrestling in San Antonio became to grow in influence. In 1982 Blachard's Promotion was picked up by the USA Network for a weekly timeslot and Jim Barnett's Georgia Championship Wrestling began to beam nationally when the Ted Turner owned TBS began to beam to a national audience as the Wrestling business entered the cable Television industry.
Another big step in the industry first appeared in this time. "Spot Shows" or special events a promotion would put on outside of their regular promotional schedules had been occurring for decades. These shows would go above and beyond their usual shows often featuring the end of the territories major feud, a world title match, or big names from outside the territory to bring in the special attendances, often at higher prices. Typically these shows revolved around major holidays such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas
but promotions were promoting more of these supershows year after year. The Cow Palace near San Francisco played host to an annual 20 man battle royal beginning in the late 60's, Fritz Von Erich prmoted several "Starr Wars" shows several times a year, Vinceent Mcmahon hosted 3 "Showdown at Shea" stadium shows during the 70's and the Crockett Promotion held annual supercards on Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 1976 a collaborated effort between Vincent McMahon, Japanese promoter and wrestler Antonio Inoki and several promoters around the country brought about the first international closed circuit telecast of a wrestling show. Closed circuit telecasts entailed an event being broadcast through satellites to large location around the country (or even the world) such as theaters, arenas, and exhibition halls where a crowd was charged to view the event. The promotion behind the event would receive half (or more) or the money brought in while the individual venues got the remainder of the share. The first of these events was the much hyped Boxer V/S Wrestler match between boxing world Champion Muhammad Ali against Inoki in a mixed rules match from Japan. This match was paired with another match with Andre the Giant facing boxer Chuck Wepner. These two match were shows on big screens and in many cases live wrestling matches were offered in arenas carrying the show. The match itself was considered a bust by American fans but made a lot of money for promoters around the country. Jim Crockett was the next to take on closed circuit when he took the traditional Thanksgiving card Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling would promote and turned it into Starrcade '83 built around the first time the NWA title would be defended inside a steel cage with reigning champion Harley Race defending against "Nature Boy" Ric Flair in the main event of a show featuring many stars from other promotions and became the first step in a change in the business.
But as I';ll write about later on, something was looming on the horizon that no one expected and would set about a change never seen before.
Our story starts in the 1930's. Wrestling at the turn of that century had been very popular but the secret shift from legit competitions to predetermined matches and the media uncovering these shady dealings with promoters along with some very public trials in courts, left the public with a bad taste in it's mouth. As a result the attendence for wrestling shows nosedived. Starting in around 1905 and leading up to this point there was an informal recognition of the "World Champion" but due to polotics of wanting to promote "World Championship" matches in their area to drum up business, the title had become fractured. Promoters from Boston, Michigan, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Kansas City, The New York State Athletic Commission, and the wrestling arm of the National Boxing Ascociation (known as the National Wrestling Ascociation) all lay some sort of claim as having a "World Champion" all during the 30's and into the 40's. With so many versions of the world title it devalued the titles and lead to a lot of confusion amongst fans. But in 1948 a group of people would get together to try to put an end to it.
In 1948 a group of a six of the most influential and powerful Pro wrestling promoters came together for a meeting (spearheaded by Midwest promoter "Pinkie" George). The result of this meeting was the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance. The NWA was a collective effort by these promoters to opeerate under one banner for the better of the business but more importantly to put money in their pockets. Under this new collective these promoters would operate under a set of rules such as they wouldn't operate in each others' territory (area in which they promoted shows), they would do business in trading talent, and more importantly they would recognize one single world champion that would travel to the different territories for limited amounts of time to add business to the shows those promoters operated. These world champions would be determined by a vote of the NWA members during their annual meetings and only with a majority vote would a champion be named.
Once the groundwork was laid down the NWA then had the task of trying to unify all the different version of the world title. Two names emerged from these matches, National Wrestling Alliance World Champion and board member Orville Brown, and National Wrestling Ascociation Champion Lou Thesz. The alliance wanted to put the title on Brown and a unification match was to be held in 1949. However weeks before the match Brown was involved in a horrific car accident and was forced to retire, leading to Thesz being made the NWA Champion (and putting an end basically to the National Wrestling Ascociation).
By 1952 the NWA world title (held by Thesz) was the only Wrestling title left standing in the US. With the NWA the dominant governing body in the country (And soon stretching into Japan, Mexico, and Canada as well) and wrestling's new found popularity thanks to television pro wrestling was seeing a boom in business not seen since the early 1900s. With the "territory system" now in full effect many local TV stations carried some form of wrestling show, since wrestling often times was a ver inexpesive form of programming for TV stations to provide. All they needed was a studio that could seat a few dozen fans, 2 cameras, and maybe a local news personality to call the action. The stations didn't have to pay the wrestlers anything and the wrestling organziation used these show to promote the local house shows (Where the real money was in wrestling). Besides TV on the local level, the nationally viewed Dumont Network also carried a wrestling show as well. Through the 50's pro wrestling and the NWA (by now covering almost all the country and several international organizations as well) reaped the benefits.
But it wasn't to last, at least as it had before. The biggest problem facing the NWA was the investigation into Monopolistic practices by the US government. The NWA was (rightly so) accused of stifling competition, blackballing those from the inudstry who did not conform to their mode of business and several other accusations. A deal was reached in 1956
but the NWA and it's board was very wary not to incite the government again. Not to much longer after this cracks formed in the Alliance. As with any organization with that much power politics and ego disagreements arose over the direction of the World Championship. Since whomever booked the world champion controlled the NWA, there was a lot of struggle and competition for the promoters to push their top wrestlers to win the world title. A major rift was growing with several NWA members backing long time champion Lou Thesz while others (most notably the Stetcher family of the Minnesota Territory) wanted to give the Title to Verne Gagne. Gagne was a former amateur champion who made the 1948 Olympic greco roman wrestling team and had been the head promoter and top star of the Dumont Network's wrestling show. However Gagne didn't garner enough of the NWA's support over fears that the Stetcher's would keep Verne for their own territory. Dismayed over not being able to win the World Title, Verne bought out the Stetcher's and split their territory away from the NWA completely. Taking political and booking control of the newly formed American Wrestling Association Verne named the now current NWA Champion Pat O' Conner the AWA world Champion. O' Conner and the NWA ignored this complelty and Gagne became the champion of his own promotion for the first time. Another major split from the Alliance happened soon after. After a dispute over the result of a match between defending NWA Champion "Nature Boy" Buddy Rodgers and former Champion Lou Thesz. Thesz won the match and the title in a single fall, where world championship matches at the time were the best two of 3 falls. Promoter's in the northeast, lead by second generation promoter Vincent Jess Mcmahon refused to recognize the title change (and the fact that Roidgers was a major draw in the Northeast) split from the NWA and formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation and named Rodgers as their first champion in early 1963. However big the dissagreements though, The now 3 major promotional entities in the United States stayed on relatively friendly terms and although not in direct business with each other stayed out of each others way. Eventually Mcmahon was brought back into the NWA but was allowed to continue to promote the WWWF title as a world title.
As with any fads in Television the Novelty of Wrestling wore out with the national audience. Locally however business was strong with many territories around the country. Besides Gagne's AWA covering the northern Midwest and Vincent Mcmahon's WWF covering the northeast region of the country, several of the NWA terrtories emerged as major players in the 60's and 70's including Jim Crockett's Mid Atlantic Championship wrestling in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland; Bob Geigel's Central States territory based out of Kansas City: Florida Championship Wrestling promoted by Eddie Graham; amongst others. There were a few attempts to compete directly against the NWA, most notably the IWA promotion that was established in direct competition to many NWA territories around the country in 1975. The promotion fell apart within a year and tried to compete against Jim Crockett's territory but came up short and dissipated by 1976.
As the 70's turned into the 80's more players began to make themselves more influential as Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling out of Texas, Bill Watts's Mid South Wrestling, and Joe Blanchard's Southwest Championship Wrestling in San Antonio became to grow in influence. In 1982 Blachard's Promotion was picked up by the USA Network for a weekly timeslot and Jim Barnett's Georgia Championship Wrestling began to beam nationally when the Ted Turner owned TBS began to beam to a national audience as the Wrestling business entered the cable Television industry.
Another big step in the industry first appeared in this time. "Spot Shows" or special events a promotion would put on outside of their regular promotional schedules had been occurring for decades. These shows would go above and beyond their usual shows often featuring the end of the territories major feud, a world title match, or big names from outside the territory to bring in the special attendances, often at higher prices. Typically these shows revolved around major holidays such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas
but promotions were promoting more of these supershows year after year. The Cow Palace near San Francisco played host to an annual 20 man battle royal beginning in the late 60's, Fritz Von Erich prmoted several "Starr Wars" shows several times a year, Vinceent Mcmahon hosted 3 "Showdown at Shea" stadium shows during the 70's and the Crockett Promotion held annual supercards on Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 1976 a collaborated effort between Vincent McMahon, Japanese promoter and wrestler Antonio Inoki and several promoters around the country brought about the first international closed circuit telecast of a wrestling show. Closed circuit telecasts entailed an event being broadcast through satellites to large location around the country (or even the world) such as theaters, arenas, and exhibition halls where a crowd was charged to view the event. The promotion behind the event would receive half (or more) or the money brought in while the individual venues got the remainder of the share. The first of these events was the much hyped Boxer V/S Wrestler match between boxing world Champion Muhammad Ali against Inoki in a mixed rules match from Japan. This match was paired with another match with Andre the Giant facing boxer Chuck Wepner. These two match were shows on big screens and in many cases live wrestling matches were offered in arenas carrying the show. The match itself was considered a bust by American fans but made a lot of money for promoters around the country. Jim Crockett was the next to take on closed circuit when he took the traditional Thanksgiving card Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling would promote and turned it into Starrcade '83 built around the first time the NWA title would be defended inside a steel cage with reigning champion Harley Race defending against "Nature Boy" Ric Flair in the main event of a show featuring many stars from other promotions and became the first step in a change in the business.
But as I';ll write about later on, something was looming on the horizon that no one expected and would set about a change never seen before.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Final Conflict 1983
I began to think about what my first review would be for this little project and looked over my collection to find the right subject to look over. I decided to go after one of my earliest, and more obscure, parts of my wrestling collection.
Final Conflict 1983
This is an event not a lot of people are really aware of and even fewer have seen. It was never released commercially in any form and the only way any of the footage saw the light of day was it was in the personal collection of Jim Nelson who wrestled on the show. He gathered together the raw footage from this show and it was sold on DVD if you looked hard enough.
Setting the stage, it was March 12, 1983 at the Coliseum in Greensboro North Carolina. In these days before monthly pay per view broadcasts and mountains of hours of TV wrestling every week The fabled Territorial system of the NWA was still very much in effect where individual promoters operated in defined borders of the country under the National Wrestling Alliance banner. The Vince McMahon buyout of his father and subsequent national expansion of the WWF was months away and out of the territories at the time, one of the biggest was Jim Crockett Jr.'s Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Mid Atlantic operated mostly between Baltimore, the Carolinas, and Virginia, but also booked talents for the Georgia and Florida Territories so they had a strong presence in the NWA. The hottest feud that they had was between the defending NWA Tag Team Champions Sgt. Slaughter and his Private, Don Kernodle and the challenge of the former Champions, the popular Ricky Steamboat (pre Dragon days) and Jay Youngblood. The feud (which I will get into later) had been brewing for months and this card was set up to be the finality of the feud. Longtime Mid Atlantic announcer Bob Caudle is at Ringside. So with the stage set we get to the action.
The Greensboro crowd is lively as The "Voice of Mid Atlantic Wrestling" Dr. Tom Miller goes through the usual announcements before the show starts about were the local fans can watch Mid Atlantic on TV before the playing of the national anthem. You can tell right off this is spliced together raw footage as instead of seamlessly going from one segment to another it just cuts right to the next bit of action.
Gerry Brisco V/S Ken Timbs
This was your typical opening match for these types of shows featuring a recognized name in the area to get the crowd fired up. Brisco is well known for being the younger brother of former NWA Champion Jack Brisco and was a big name himself in the NWA, having won a number of tag titles with his brother and also being the champion of the Mid Atlantic region in the early 70's. Timbs on the other hand was a generic bottle blond bad guy and a bit of the journeyman wrestler who bounced around the territories in the 80's, mostly know for his future team with Eric Embry as the Fabulous Blonds before wrestling in South and Central America for the rest of his career before passing away in 2004.
The match begins with Brisco using amateur wrestling while Timbs tries his luck with a wrist lock but that doesn't get him very far. Both Brisco brothers were NCAA wrestling stand outs so whatever Timbs tries Gerry just counters his way out of it. Timbs finally gains the advantage with the wrist lock and pulling of the tights that just makes Gerry mad. Timbs keeps working over the arm with a wrist lock and wrapping Brisco's arms in the ropes before making the mistake of whipping Brisco into the corner and not following up. Brisco hits a dropkick and finishes Timbs off with a figure 4 leg lock (the finisher of both Briscos) to win the match.
Winner: Gerry Brisco in 5:00. Well that match was certanly quick, even for the standards of the day. It did what it was supposed to I guess with getting the crowd fired up.
Dr. Tom Miller comes in the announce the Easter Sunday card featuring the Brisco brothers V/s Dory Funk Jr. and Paul Jones.
Mike Rotundo V/S Rick Harris
Rotundo was just getting started in his wrestling career as was known as the young Syracuse wrestling stand out. Eventually he'd have an incredible run as Capt. Mike Rotundo and as IRS in the WWF. Rick Harris was later known more famously as Black Bart, and was a generic kick and punch brawler who had decent runs in Florida and Mid Atlantic before being known as one of the worst recognized world champions of all time when he won the WCCW title in 1986. Beyond that he was used as a jobber for both WWF and WCW. The match starts off slow with Harris using power to try and wear down Mike, working arm and wrist locks to show he's more powerful while Mike using his counters to get out of it. Harris switches to punches and forearms before settling for a headlock at Mike counters only for Harris to nail Mike with a knee to regain control. They trade moves back and forth before Harris runs into Rotundo's airplane spin and the 3 count.
Winner: Mike Rotundo in 6:00. These guys aren't getting paid by the hour tonight. It was basically Harris dominating with Rotundo countering for the win.
Dr. Tom Miller makes another announcement about the Easter Sunday card featuring a 6 man match with Greg Valentine, the One Man Gang, and Sir Oliver Humperdink going against Bugsy Mcgraw, Jimmy "Boogie Woogie man" Valiant, and Andre the Giant.
Johnny Weaver & Pvt. Jim Nelson V/S Gene Anderson & Red Dog Lane
Our undercard tag match of the evening. Johnny Weaver was a long time staple of the area, going back to the early 60's. At this point his wrestling days were winding down and he was used mostly as a tag partner for younger guys to show them the ropes in the ring. Pvt. Jim Nelson was formerly part of Sgt. Slaughter's corp but turned against the Sarge to help train Steamboat and Youngblood for the main event. He would later be better known as the Russian Boris Zukov in the AWA and WWF. The opponents are Gene Anderson, another long time staple of east Coast Wrestling and was part of one of the best Tag teams of all time the Minnesota Wrecking Crew with his "brother" Ole Anderson that was a top draw back in the 70's and early 80's until Gene suffered a stroke and became a manager for a while before coming back. At this point Ole was wrestling as a face in Georgia while Gene was used the same as Weaver was, helping younger guys. Red Dog Lane (from Mule Shoe, Texas) I have no clue about so he never amounted to much I would guess. Weaver and Lane start the match with Weaver leading Lane through some moves and outfoxing the younger Lane. They do a cool spot in the match where Lane goes for a Monkey flip and Weaver just sits down. A simple counter but one I've never seen before or since. Tired of being schooled Lane tags in the vetren Anderson. Gene takes control with punches and works over Weaver for a while. Weaver scoots through Gene's legs to tag in Nelson who takes on both opponents with bodyslams. Weaver tags back in and is caught with a knee from Gene. Gene and Lane trade offense on Weaver before he makes the tag to Nelson who pins lane with a small package.
Winners: Johnny Weaver and Pvt. Jim Nelson in 7:00 minutes. A quick basic tag match where the veterans lead the younger guys around. Short and inoffensive.
You can tell this was raw footage as we hear bob Caudle talking to the people in the back about David Crockett joining him for commentary while Dr. Tom Miller hypes the Easter Sunday card to the crowd again leading to the first intermission.
NWA Television Title: Dick Slater (champion) V/S Roddy Piper
Our first title match of the evening as the NWA TV Champion Slater is managed by Gary Hart. Slater came out of Florida in the late 70's as one of Dusty Rhodes's buddies and was known through his career as "Mr. Unpredictable" as he changed from a technical wrestler to a crazy brawler mid match and changed from heel to face so often as well. He bounced around the territories with stints in Georgia, Florida, Mid Atlantic and Mid South and had a brief run in the WWF and two runs in WCW before going into semi retirement and facing some legal issues. Hart was a former wrestler turned manager who had his most success being a foil for the Von Erich family in Texas, and was in Mid Atlantic after having a falling out with Fritz Von Erich after their big 1982 Christmas show that sparked World Class's huge run. He would stay in the area until mid 1984 before going back to be the booker and lead manager. Roddy Piper had made a name for himself in the Northwest Territory under Don Owen before moving to Mid Atlantic and his star grew even more. His wrestling skills were average but his timing and his abilities on the mic got him over big with the fans. He started in the area in the early 80's as a heel but became a popular face. He eventually jumped to the WWF and was a big time player n the Rock N wrestling Connection. The match starts very oddly as Gary Hart comes to the ring and grabs to house mic to tell Dick Slater it was match time and get to the ring, I guess playing into the Mr. Unpredictable namesake. This match is for the TV title where the match itself was time limited to 60 minutes but the belt itself was only on the line for the first 15. The match kicks off as Slater chokes Piper with a towel, but Piper reverses it and begins to choke Slater. Both men are known for their high energy offense so this match picks up in a hurry as fists start flying and the crowd finally gets into the action. Both men trade offense back and forth while Hart keeps jumping on the ring apron. The Referee even shoves him to the floor at one point but Hart keeps coming back up. Slater goes for a spinning toe hold that Piper counters with a poke to the eyes. action spills to the floor where Piper is thrown to the ringpost to give Slater the advantage but Piper comes back again. Hart keeps trying to distract the ref but it doesn't work as Piper keeps on the offensive. Both men slug it out trading punches as the pacing of this match over the earlier ones is like night and day. Piper goes for the sleeper hold and Hart keeps trying to distract the ref. Slater gets out of it on his own but Piper regains the advatage again. Hart distracts Piper and then the ref as Slater throws Piper over the top rope (which would have been a Disqualification had the ref seen it). Slater suplexes Piper in the ring and pins him, but Piper has his foot on the ropes so the ref restarts the match. Hart keeps trying to distract the ref but Piper scored the hit on Slater and scores the pinfall. Unfortunately it was outside the time limit so Piper doesn't get the belt.
Winner: Roddy Piper in 17:00. This match was so much better than the undercard matches. While the previous matches were very basic and "old school" this match had a lot more energy from both the wrestlers and the crowd.
Unfortunately this collection omits the World title match where NWA Champion Ric Flair went to a 60 minute draw against US Champion and former Tag Partner Greg Valentine. Knowing both men's styles it probably wasn't breaking any speed records but was a heavy hitting battle.
NWA World Tag team Title: Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle (Champions) V/S Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood.
The cage is up and it's time for our Main Event. The feud got started when Slaughter and Kernodle "Won" the NWA Tag Titles in late 1982 (In reality the previous Champions Ole Anderson and Stan Hansen left the area for Georgia and the titles were given to Slaughter and Kernodle without a match). Meanwhile Steamboat and Youngblood got back together as a tag team having won the titles 3 times prior to this and made it known they wanted a shot. Slaughter's main weapon was the Cobra Clutch which no man could break, but Youngblood developed a counter for it, demonstrating it on Kernodle during a tag match (The famous quote from Slaughter "You didn't counter MY Cobra Clutch"). Previous matches between these teams turned into wars without a clear winner or a dubious ending so Steamboat and Youngblood demanded one more match. Slaughter and Company returned with a clause that said if Ricky and Jay lost the match they'd have to split up as a tag team. Ricky and Jay then alluded to someone who was "helping" them train and a little while before the match it was revealed to be Pvt. Jim Nelson. The build up to this match was huge for the territory for the time and they packed the Greensboro Coliseum. The match begins with the challengers entering the ring first. The cage is barely taller than they are and is cyclone fence. The champions enter to the theme from Rocky and instead of military combat attire they are wearing work out gear. David Crockett has a conversation with someone in the back over the fact that Kernodle's t shirt has the wrong date printed on it. The refferee is Sandy Scott, former wrestler and brother of booker George Scott. The early action has the challengers dominating Kernodle with headlocks. This pretty much goes on for 10 minutes. Sarge tries to come in to help but it is ineffective as Scott chases him back. They have to do something since Nothing much has happened yet. There is a breif spot where Steamboat and Youngblood work over Don with some high flying moves but once again go right back to the headlock. Kernodle tries to go for a tag but Youngblood chops him down and goes back to the headlock again. Jay and Ricky finally start doing real offensive maneuvers before Kernodle makes the tag. Slaughter tries to go on the offensive but Jay sends him flying in the cage twice. Slaughter gains an advantage and tries to push Jay's head into the cage but Jay blocks it. Jay makes the tag and the challengers keep going for pins but the champions kick out. Slaughter impresses people by doing a leapfrog over Jay Youngblood before tossing him into the cage. Sarge tosses him into the cage a few more times before Jay starts to bleed from the forehead. Jay tries to make the comeback but Sarge and Don work him over more and more. The crowd really starts to react as Jay tries to make a comeback. Sarge tries to go for the Cobra Clutch by Jay slips out and sends slaughter into the cage cutting him open before making the tag. Steamboat rages on both Champions sending Kernodle into the cage twice before going for a diving chop only to have Sarge pull his partner out of the way and the Champions take the advantage. Don goes for the attack as Steamboat dives out of the way and Kernodle is cut open. Slaughter and Kernodle try for the finish but Steamboat counters, only to get sent into the cage and busted open. The ring is full of blood stains now. Slaughter sets Steamboat up and climbs to the top rope and then to the top of the cage for a Huge dives that of course misses. Both men tag and Youngblood dominates with hits and chops. The challengers take over on Kernodle as Sarge can't stand up in the corner. Slaughter tries to interfere but is taken out again as the challengers are in charge and the fans are really getting into it now. Jay goes for his own Cobra clutch on Kernodle while Ricky locks Sarge in a sleeper but Slaughter escapes and breaks up the Cobra clutch to save his partner but it also takes down the ref. Slaughter slips something into his elbow pad and clotheslines Youngblood. He places Don on top for the pin but when the ref comes around he shoes Slaughter back in the corner. Meanwhile Steamboat slips in and reverses the cover. The ref turns around and we have new NWA tag team champions.
Winners: Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood. The fans go crazy as wrestlers from the back come out to congratulate the new champions. The match started out painfully slow but picked up half way through as the challengers worked the crowd up to a frenzy before the finish. We then see the former champions slowly and painfully make there way back to the locker room as one fans yells to them to "get them in the parking lot", priceless.
As some bonus material on the disc we see a segment not to long after this event from the TV show of the Brisco's heel turn after a match with the Champions and then attacking Jim Nelson. We also get treated to a Nelson match with Ric Flair.
Overall it wasn't much of a show, even for that time. Sure it's hard to say without the World Title match but the 3 openers were just overblown TV squash matches. However the build up for the main event and the show in general was HUGELY influential in the wrestling business. Why? This show did so well that a few months later Jim Crockett put on another big show with the tag title rematch, only this time Slaughter and Kernodle would have to split up if they lost. That did such great business that Crockett Promotions got together with a few other promoters, got some closed circuit clearance, and presented the first Starrcade event, often seen as the first of the modern Wrestling supercards, laying the ground work for the wrestling pay per view events today.
Final Conflict 1983
This is an event not a lot of people are really aware of and even fewer have seen. It was never released commercially in any form and the only way any of the footage saw the light of day was it was in the personal collection of Jim Nelson who wrestled on the show. He gathered together the raw footage from this show and it was sold on DVD if you looked hard enough.
Setting the stage, it was March 12, 1983 at the Coliseum in Greensboro North Carolina. In these days before monthly pay per view broadcasts and mountains of hours of TV wrestling every week The fabled Territorial system of the NWA was still very much in effect where individual promoters operated in defined borders of the country under the National Wrestling Alliance banner. The Vince McMahon buyout of his father and subsequent national expansion of the WWF was months away and out of the territories at the time, one of the biggest was Jim Crockett Jr.'s Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Mid Atlantic operated mostly between Baltimore, the Carolinas, and Virginia, but also booked talents for the Georgia and Florida Territories so they had a strong presence in the NWA. The hottest feud that they had was between the defending NWA Tag Team Champions Sgt. Slaughter and his Private, Don Kernodle and the challenge of the former Champions, the popular Ricky Steamboat (pre Dragon days) and Jay Youngblood. The feud (which I will get into later) had been brewing for months and this card was set up to be the finality of the feud. Longtime Mid Atlantic announcer Bob Caudle is at Ringside. So with the stage set we get to the action.
The Greensboro crowd is lively as The "Voice of Mid Atlantic Wrestling" Dr. Tom Miller goes through the usual announcements before the show starts about were the local fans can watch Mid Atlantic on TV before the playing of the national anthem. You can tell right off this is spliced together raw footage as instead of seamlessly going from one segment to another it just cuts right to the next bit of action.
Gerry Brisco V/S Ken Timbs
This was your typical opening match for these types of shows featuring a recognized name in the area to get the crowd fired up. Brisco is well known for being the younger brother of former NWA Champion Jack Brisco and was a big name himself in the NWA, having won a number of tag titles with his brother and also being the champion of the Mid Atlantic region in the early 70's. Timbs on the other hand was a generic bottle blond bad guy and a bit of the journeyman wrestler who bounced around the territories in the 80's, mostly know for his future team with Eric Embry as the Fabulous Blonds before wrestling in South and Central America for the rest of his career before passing away in 2004.
The match begins with Brisco using amateur wrestling while Timbs tries his luck with a wrist lock but that doesn't get him very far. Both Brisco brothers were NCAA wrestling stand outs so whatever Timbs tries Gerry just counters his way out of it. Timbs finally gains the advantage with the wrist lock and pulling of the tights that just makes Gerry mad. Timbs keeps working over the arm with a wrist lock and wrapping Brisco's arms in the ropes before making the mistake of whipping Brisco into the corner and not following up. Brisco hits a dropkick and finishes Timbs off with a figure 4 leg lock (the finisher of both Briscos) to win the match.
Winner: Gerry Brisco in 5:00. Well that match was certanly quick, even for the standards of the day. It did what it was supposed to I guess with getting the crowd fired up.
Dr. Tom Miller comes in the announce the Easter Sunday card featuring the Brisco brothers V/s Dory Funk Jr. and Paul Jones.
Mike Rotundo V/S Rick Harris
Rotundo was just getting started in his wrestling career as was known as the young Syracuse wrestling stand out. Eventually he'd have an incredible run as Capt. Mike Rotundo and as IRS in the WWF. Rick Harris was later known more famously as Black Bart, and was a generic kick and punch brawler who had decent runs in Florida and Mid Atlantic before being known as one of the worst recognized world champions of all time when he won the WCCW title in 1986. Beyond that he was used as a jobber for both WWF and WCW. The match starts off slow with Harris using power to try and wear down Mike, working arm and wrist locks to show he's more powerful while Mike using his counters to get out of it. Harris switches to punches and forearms before settling for a headlock at Mike counters only for Harris to nail Mike with a knee to regain control. They trade moves back and forth before Harris runs into Rotundo's airplane spin and the 3 count.
Winner: Mike Rotundo in 6:00. These guys aren't getting paid by the hour tonight. It was basically Harris dominating with Rotundo countering for the win.
Dr. Tom Miller makes another announcement about the Easter Sunday card featuring a 6 man match with Greg Valentine, the One Man Gang, and Sir Oliver Humperdink going against Bugsy Mcgraw, Jimmy "Boogie Woogie man" Valiant, and Andre the Giant.
Johnny Weaver & Pvt. Jim Nelson V/S Gene Anderson & Red Dog Lane
Our undercard tag match of the evening. Johnny Weaver was a long time staple of the area, going back to the early 60's. At this point his wrestling days were winding down and he was used mostly as a tag partner for younger guys to show them the ropes in the ring. Pvt. Jim Nelson was formerly part of Sgt. Slaughter's corp but turned against the Sarge to help train Steamboat and Youngblood for the main event. He would later be better known as the Russian Boris Zukov in the AWA and WWF. The opponents are Gene Anderson, another long time staple of east Coast Wrestling and was part of one of the best Tag teams of all time the Minnesota Wrecking Crew with his "brother" Ole Anderson that was a top draw back in the 70's and early 80's until Gene suffered a stroke and became a manager for a while before coming back. At this point Ole was wrestling as a face in Georgia while Gene was used the same as Weaver was, helping younger guys. Red Dog Lane (from Mule Shoe, Texas) I have no clue about so he never amounted to much I would guess. Weaver and Lane start the match with Weaver leading Lane through some moves and outfoxing the younger Lane. They do a cool spot in the match where Lane goes for a Monkey flip and Weaver just sits down. A simple counter but one I've never seen before or since. Tired of being schooled Lane tags in the vetren Anderson. Gene takes control with punches and works over Weaver for a while. Weaver scoots through Gene's legs to tag in Nelson who takes on both opponents with bodyslams. Weaver tags back in and is caught with a knee from Gene. Gene and Lane trade offense on Weaver before he makes the tag to Nelson who pins lane with a small package.
Winners: Johnny Weaver and Pvt. Jim Nelson in 7:00 minutes. A quick basic tag match where the veterans lead the younger guys around. Short and inoffensive.
You can tell this was raw footage as we hear bob Caudle talking to the people in the back about David Crockett joining him for commentary while Dr. Tom Miller hypes the Easter Sunday card to the crowd again leading to the first intermission.
NWA Television Title: Dick Slater (champion) V/S Roddy Piper
Our first title match of the evening as the NWA TV Champion Slater is managed by Gary Hart. Slater came out of Florida in the late 70's as one of Dusty Rhodes's buddies and was known through his career as "Mr. Unpredictable" as he changed from a technical wrestler to a crazy brawler mid match and changed from heel to face so often as well. He bounced around the territories with stints in Georgia, Florida, Mid Atlantic and Mid South and had a brief run in the WWF and two runs in WCW before going into semi retirement and facing some legal issues. Hart was a former wrestler turned manager who had his most success being a foil for the Von Erich family in Texas, and was in Mid Atlantic after having a falling out with Fritz Von Erich after their big 1982 Christmas show that sparked World Class's huge run. He would stay in the area until mid 1984 before going back to be the booker and lead manager. Roddy Piper had made a name for himself in the Northwest Territory under Don Owen before moving to Mid Atlantic and his star grew even more. His wrestling skills were average but his timing and his abilities on the mic got him over big with the fans. He started in the area in the early 80's as a heel but became a popular face. He eventually jumped to the WWF and was a big time player n the Rock N wrestling Connection. The match starts very oddly as Gary Hart comes to the ring and grabs to house mic to tell Dick Slater it was match time and get to the ring, I guess playing into the Mr. Unpredictable namesake. This match is for the TV title where the match itself was time limited to 60 minutes but the belt itself was only on the line for the first 15. The match kicks off as Slater chokes Piper with a towel, but Piper reverses it and begins to choke Slater. Both men are known for their high energy offense so this match picks up in a hurry as fists start flying and the crowd finally gets into the action. Both men trade offense back and forth while Hart keeps jumping on the ring apron. The Referee even shoves him to the floor at one point but Hart keeps coming back up. Slater goes for a spinning toe hold that Piper counters with a poke to the eyes. action spills to the floor where Piper is thrown to the ringpost to give Slater the advantage but Piper comes back again. Hart keeps trying to distract the ref but it doesn't work as Piper keeps on the offensive. Both men slug it out trading punches as the pacing of this match over the earlier ones is like night and day. Piper goes for the sleeper hold and Hart keeps trying to distract the ref. Slater gets out of it on his own but Piper regains the advatage again. Hart distracts Piper and then the ref as Slater throws Piper over the top rope (which would have been a Disqualification had the ref seen it). Slater suplexes Piper in the ring and pins him, but Piper has his foot on the ropes so the ref restarts the match. Hart keeps trying to distract the ref but Piper scored the hit on Slater and scores the pinfall. Unfortunately it was outside the time limit so Piper doesn't get the belt.
Winner: Roddy Piper in 17:00. This match was so much better than the undercard matches. While the previous matches were very basic and "old school" this match had a lot more energy from both the wrestlers and the crowd.
Unfortunately this collection omits the World title match where NWA Champion Ric Flair went to a 60 minute draw against US Champion and former Tag Partner Greg Valentine. Knowing both men's styles it probably wasn't breaking any speed records but was a heavy hitting battle.
NWA World Tag team Title: Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle (Champions) V/S Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood.
The cage is up and it's time for our Main Event. The feud got started when Slaughter and Kernodle "Won" the NWA Tag Titles in late 1982 (In reality the previous Champions Ole Anderson and Stan Hansen left the area for Georgia and the titles were given to Slaughter and Kernodle without a match). Meanwhile Steamboat and Youngblood got back together as a tag team having won the titles 3 times prior to this and made it known they wanted a shot. Slaughter's main weapon was the Cobra Clutch which no man could break, but Youngblood developed a counter for it, demonstrating it on Kernodle during a tag match (The famous quote from Slaughter "You didn't counter MY Cobra Clutch"). Previous matches between these teams turned into wars without a clear winner or a dubious ending so Steamboat and Youngblood demanded one more match. Slaughter and Company returned with a clause that said if Ricky and Jay lost the match they'd have to split up as a tag team. Ricky and Jay then alluded to someone who was "helping" them train and a little while before the match it was revealed to be Pvt. Jim Nelson. The build up to this match was huge for the territory for the time and they packed the Greensboro Coliseum. The match begins with the challengers entering the ring first. The cage is barely taller than they are and is cyclone fence. The champions enter to the theme from Rocky and instead of military combat attire they are wearing work out gear. David Crockett has a conversation with someone in the back over the fact that Kernodle's t shirt has the wrong date printed on it. The refferee is Sandy Scott, former wrestler and brother of booker George Scott. The early action has the challengers dominating Kernodle with headlocks. This pretty much goes on for 10 minutes. Sarge tries to come in to help but it is ineffective as Scott chases him back. They have to do something since Nothing much has happened yet. There is a breif spot where Steamboat and Youngblood work over Don with some high flying moves but once again go right back to the headlock. Kernodle tries to go for a tag but Youngblood chops him down and goes back to the headlock again. Jay and Ricky finally start doing real offensive maneuvers before Kernodle makes the tag. Slaughter tries to go on the offensive but Jay sends him flying in the cage twice. Slaughter gains an advantage and tries to push Jay's head into the cage but Jay blocks it. Jay makes the tag and the challengers keep going for pins but the champions kick out. Slaughter impresses people by doing a leapfrog over Jay Youngblood before tossing him into the cage. Sarge tosses him into the cage a few more times before Jay starts to bleed from the forehead. Jay tries to make the comeback but Sarge and Don work him over more and more. The crowd really starts to react as Jay tries to make a comeback. Sarge tries to go for the Cobra Clutch by Jay slips out and sends slaughter into the cage cutting him open before making the tag. Steamboat rages on both Champions sending Kernodle into the cage twice before going for a diving chop only to have Sarge pull his partner out of the way and the Champions take the advantage. Don goes for the attack as Steamboat dives out of the way and Kernodle is cut open. Slaughter and Kernodle try for the finish but Steamboat counters, only to get sent into the cage and busted open. The ring is full of blood stains now. Slaughter sets Steamboat up and climbs to the top rope and then to the top of the cage for a Huge dives that of course misses. Both men tag and Youngblood dominates with hits and chops. The challengers take over on Kernodle as Sarge can't stand up in the corner. Slaughter tries to interfere but is taken out again as the challengers are in charge and the fans are really getting into it now. Jay goes for his own Cobra clutch on Kernodle while Ricky locks Sarge in a sleeper but Slaughter escapes and breaks up the Cobra clutch to save his partner but it also takes down the ref. Slaughter slips something into his elbow pad and clotheslines Youngblood. He places Don on top for the pin but when the ref comes around he shoes Slaughter back in the corner. Meanwhile Steamboat slips in and reverses the cover. The ref turns around and we have new NWA tag team champions.
Winners: Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood. The fans go crazy as wrestlers from the back come out to congratulate the new champions. The match started out painfully slow but picked up half way through as the challengers worked the crowd up to a frenzy before the finish. We then see the former champions slowly and painfully make there way back to the locker room as one fans yells to them to "get them in the parking lot", priceless.
As some bonus material on the disc we see a segment not to long after this event from the TV show of the Brisco's heel turn after a match with the Champions and then attacking Jim Nelson. We also get treated to a Nelson match with Ric Flair.
Overall it wasn't much of a show, even for that time. Sure it's hard to say without the World Title match but the 3 openers were just overblown TV squash matches. However the build up for the main event and the show in general was HUGELY influential in the wrestling business. Why? This show did so well that a few months later Jim Crockett put on another big show with the tag title rematch, only this time Slaughter and Kernodle would have to split up if they lost. That did such great business that Crockett Promotions got together with a few other promoters, got some closed circuit clearance, and presented the first Starrcade event, often seen as the first of the modern Wrestling supercards, laying the ground work for the wrestling pay per view events today.
The start of something new
For a long time I had been given the advice that if I was to ever get any kind of paying job in writing I probably needed to start a blog. I had always thought about it but other things kept diverting my attention. Well, it was time to finally bite the bullet and start one.
But what to talk about? And would anyone care?
Well, the answer to the first question was staring me right in the face. I have a huge collection of Wrestling and Anime dvds and such so I figure I can reveiw those. Would anyone care? Probably not but we'll give it a whirl.
So with that, I present "From the Collection" a random review site of Wrestling, Anime, and any other of the more geekier pursuits that come my way.
But what to talk about? And would anyone care?
Well, the answer to the first question was staring me right in the face. I have a huge collection of Wrestling and Anime dvds and such so I figure I can reveiw those. Would anyone care? Probably not but we'll give it a whirl.
So with that, I present "From the Collection" a random review site of Wrestling, Anime, and any other of the more geekier pursuits that come my way.
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