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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 26, 2014 15:54:09 GMT -5
There's some obvious ones, but one I'm really curious about is JWA, which had a whole bunch of classics before closing down in 1973. For those unfamiliar with JWA it was a Japanese promotion that was around before NJPW and AJPW. I'm curious to know who owns their footage now and if WWE ever thought about buying it. I figure they wouldn't for a variety of reasons such as even though JWA used American workers, they didn't use a lot of workers that were associated much with the WWWF or WWF.
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Post by king1836 on Apr 26, 2014 15:57:18 GMT -5
They should try to get Southeast Championship Wrestling. I heard Wendell Cooley was a good wrestler.
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67 more
King Koopa
He's just a Sexy Kurt
Posts: 11,503
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Post by 67 more on Apr 26, 2014 16:28:36 GMT -5
When they eventually go down the tubes, TNA and ROH just because so much of their talent have spent time there.
Would love to see some sort of licensing deals worked out with promotions such as New Japan or AAA.
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Post by king1836 on Apr 26, 2014 16:31:58 GMT -5
When they eventually go down the tubes, TNA and ROH just because so much of their talent have spent time there. Would love to see some sort of licensing deals worked out with promotions such as New Japan or AAA. Ring Of Honor is going down the tubes?
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Crappler El 0 M
Dalek
Never Forgets an Octagon
I'm a good R-Truth.
Posts: 58,479
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Post by Crappler El 0 M on Apr 26, 2014 16:34:29 GMT -5
If they can figure out how to get the Memphis library, that would be awesome.
Global Wrestling Federation. Granted, it's not THAT great but many of its wrestlers went on to bigger things in WWF, ECW, and WCW.
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67 more
King Koopa
He's just a Sexy Kurt
Posts: 11,503
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Post by 67 more on Apr 26, 2014 16:35:27 GMT -5
When they eventually go down the tubes, TNA and ROH just because so much of their talent have spent time there. Would love to see some sort of licensing deals worked out with promotions such as New Japan or AAA. Ring Of Honor is going down the tubes? It's not right now, but at some point ROH will die (just like other great promotions have done) and WWE will buy their library. Whether this is in 5 or 25 years remains to be seen.
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Post by Hit Girl on Apr 26, 2014 16:42:11 GMT -5
Global Force Wrestling
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Post by Drillbit Taylor on Apr 26, 2014 16:52:23 GMT -5
Houston. Though I think it MIGHT be under the current NWA Owner's possession. But Current NWA is closer to death's door than TNA is, and we often rag on TNA.
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Post by mrtuesday on Apr 26, 2014 16:53:03 GMT -5
GLOW, because why not?
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Post by Mayonnaise on Apr 26, 2014 16:54:18 GMT -5
If they can figure out how to get the Memphis library, that would be awesome. Global Wrestling Federation. Granted, it's not THAT great but many of its wrestlers went on to bigger things in WWF, ECW, and WCW. Rumor is the Memphis stuff has been straightened out and WWE is in the process of buying it. They have GWF to the best of my knowledge and have used it on a few different DVDs.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 26, 2014 17:04:12 GMT -5
If they can figure out how to get the Memphis library, that would be awesome. Global Wrestling Federation. Granted, it's not THAT great but many of its wrestlers went on to bigger things in WWF, ECW, and WCW. Rumor is the Memphis stuff has been straightened out and WWE is in the process of buying it. They have GWF to the best of my knowledge and have used it on a few different DVDs. Wasn't that an April fools joke? Also, anyone got an answer for me about JWA?
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Post by Seth Drakin of Monster Crap on Apr 26, 2014 17:06:29 GMT -5
Some of the libraries you mentioned may be hard to find because I'm gonna take a guess and say some companies didn't really take good care of their tape libraries.
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Post by Mayonnaise on Apr 26, 2014 17:18:21 GMT -5
Rumor is the Memphis stuff has been straightened out and WWE is in the process of buying it. They have GWF to the best of my knowledge and have used it on a few different DVDs. Wasn't that an April fools joke? Not that I have heard. I'd imagine it's like Mid-South thing in a way, it is just going to take a lot of time and patience.
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FinalGwen
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Particularly fond of muffins.
Posts: 16,432
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Post by FinalGwen on Apr 26, 2014 18:46:48 GMT -5
I could see them going after World Of Sport at some point for early matches of the Bulldogs, Regal, etc.
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Professor Chaos
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Bringer of Destruction and Maker of Doom
Posts: 16,332
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Post by Professor Chaos on Apr 26, 2014 19:04:37 GMT -5
Gimme some of that UWF and this cowboy can sit and watch with a bucket of fried chicken till the cows come home.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Apr 26, 2014 20:16:01 GMT -5
The problem with most pre-expansion era libraries is that the libraries simply do not exist any longer. Recording material was reused over and over, erasing the previous month's stuff to record the new stuff, etc. There wasn't a VHS/DVD market, and wrestling reruns weren't a thing, so there was no reason for them to keep archives. For instance, only a literal handful of Amarillo (the Funks' territory) matches have turned up. There's very little of Detroit or San Francisco still around. Poffo's ICW has a small bit, but not a lot.
I could see WWE trying to buy something like JWA, if it still exists, simply to cater to the Japanese-speaking market, similar to how their deal with Colon was to get more Spanish work on the Network.
But don't count on them gobbling up just any promotion "just because"....that won't happen. I sincerely doubt they'll go after any libraries from promotions that don't have roots in at least the 80s, unless there were a TON of their guys pre-WWF/E in it. They'd be more interested in ROH for that reason than TNA (all the before they were stars footage instead of "footage of our former main eventers now washed up"
Of the major U.S. territories, they still don't have San Fran, Los Angeles, Amarillo, Detroit, Memphis, Hawaii, Houston, Central States, St. Louis, Gulf Coast, Continental/Southeastern, Knoxville, Southwest/Texas All-Star or Pacific Northwest. There are a larger number of 80s and 90s upstarts they don't have - NAWA, Savoldi's ICW, GLOW, Abram's UWF, etc., and that's all before we even get into the boom period where tons of fly-by-night promotions with bigger dreams than wallets popped up like MECW, Urban Wrestling Alliance, AWF, JCP 2.0.
WWE buys footage for two reasons: Early footage of their stars that they can then market, or to help get a foothold in new markets (the above-referenced Puerto Rico purchase). They aren't going to spend money on anything that doesn't accomplish one of those two goals.
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Post by Crusty Ruffles on Apr 26, 2014 20:27:35 GMT -5
If it can ever get sorted out, Memphis is really the last expansive goldmine they could get.
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Apr 26, 2014 20:34:47 GMT -5
There's some obvious ones, but one I'm really curious about is JWA, which had a whole bunch of classics before closing down in 1973. For those unfamiliar with JWA it was a Japanese promotion that was around before NJPW and AJPW. I'm curious to know who owns their footage now and if WWE ever thought about buying it. I figure they wouldn't for a variety of reasons such as even though JWA used American workers, they didn't use a lot of workers that were associated much with the WWWF or WWF. It's questionable how much of the WWE/WWF/WWWF's own footage exists pre-1973. I've never seen any matches from Bruno Sammartino's first title reign in the 60's, and I've looked. I can't imagine much, if any, JWA footage still exists from that time period, let alone anything worth the WWE's time acquiring. In the Japanese wrestling vein though, I've brought this idea up before - WWE buying FMW's tape library. Now I know a Japanese Death Match fed probably isn't the top choice for their current PG programming, but the companies been dead more than a decade, we know the footage exists, they did use a lot of familiar US talents (most notably Mick Foley), co-promoted with ECW a few times and during their last few years became something of a WWE/Attitude Era tribute fed. With a viewer discretion label and some careful editing, I think FMW could be a good addition to the WWE Network.
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Dragonfly
Samurai Cop
...is no Barry Windham.
Posts: 2,486
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Post by Dragonfly on Apr 26, 2014 23:02:27 GMT -5
There's some obvious ones, but one I'm really curious about is JWA, which had a whole bunch of classics before closing down in 1973. For those unfamiliar with JWA it was a Japanese promotion that was around before NJPW and AJPW. I'm curious to know who owns their footage now and if WWE ever thought about buying it. I figure they wouldn't for a variety of reasons such as even though JWA used American workers, they didn't use a lot of workers that were associated much with the WWWF or WWF. It's questionable how much of the WWE/WWF/WWWF's own footage exists pre-1973. I've never seen any matches from Bruno Sammartino's first title reign in the 60's, and I've looked. Bruno spent a good portion of his time on Studio Wrestling, a WWWF-affiliated TV show/promotion run by Sammartino and Toots Mondt. According to my dad, who knows more about that era than anyone has a right to, he defended the title on the show quite regularly. Like a lot of those promotions, most of Studio Wrestling no longer exists - the tapes were used in the mid-70s for the 6 o'clock news. The only thing I've seen at all was a clip package used in various Pittsburgh-centric nostalgia specials and this promo from The Crusher.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 26, 2014 23:12:18 GMT -5
It's questionable how much of the WWE/WWF/WWWF's own footage exists pre-1973. I've never seen any matches from Bruno Sammartino's first title reign in the 60's, and I've looked. Bruno spent a good portion of his time on Studio Wrestling, a WWWF-affiliated TV show/promotion run by Sammartino and Toots Mondt. According to my dad, who knows more about that era than anyone has a right to, he defended the title on the show quite regularly. Like a lot of those promotions, most of Studio Wrestling no longer exists - the tapes were used in the mid-70s for the 6 o'clock news. The only thing I've seen at all was a clip package used in various Pittsburgh-centric nostalgia specials and this promo from The Crusher. Haha, I found that promo earlier when looking for some footage. I remembered that the full match of Bruno Sammartino wrestling Giant Baba still exists and thought that was for the WWWF Championship, but it turns out it wasn't (though it took place while Bruno was still WWWF Champion during his first run). I'd be curious to see some of Bruno's first reign too. I know the end of his loss to Ivan Koloff is out there and I've watched it. There might be some more bits and pieces out there too, but nothing really comes to mind not already mentioned. No full matches that I can think of though and I've also looked before.
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