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Post by thegame415 on Dec 25, 2014 13:14:58 GMT -5
So, I'm watching the Monday Night Wars on the network. They mention Ted Turner buying the NWA. Was it that he bought the NWA, or just Jim Crockett promotions?
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DjZonk
Don Corleone
Where's my cat?
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Post by DjZonk on Dec 25, 2014 14:17:53 GMT -5
Just JCP.
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Post by ________ has left the building on Dec 25, 2014 16:27:58 GMT -5
Jim Crockett Promotions was basically the NWA or at least the overall bulk of the company. They controlled all of the main titles, had the biggest stars, and the farthest reach. It wasn't until years later that WCW got their own titles and wiped away the NWA image from WCW. After that, the NWA retooled itself with Dennis Coralluzzo running the charge.
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Post by thegame415 on Dec 26, 2014 17:49:36 GMT -5
Jim Crockett promotions was several southern territories, right?
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Post by CeilingFan on Dec 26, 2014 17:54:10 GMT -5
Jim Crockett promotions was several southern territories, right? Jim Crockett absorbed the Georgia area in 1985, the Central States in 1986, Florida and the UWF in 1987. As for the other NWA territories Flair stopped going to them in 1987. |
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cjh
Hank Scorpio
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Post by cjh on Dec 26, 2014 17:59:23 GMT -5
Jim Crockett promotions was several southern territories, right? No, just one. Here's what happened: July 1984: Georgia Championship Wrestling, airing on TBS as World Championship Wrestling, is bought by the WWF. The GCW Saturday night show on TBS becomes solely WWF matches. August 1984: Ole Anderson, minority owner of GCW when it was sold, continues group as Championship Wrestling from Georgia and moves to early Saturday mornings on TBS. April 1985: Jim Crockett, owner of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, buys the WWF's timeslot on TBS. He also takes over Anderson's morning timeslot. The Mid-Atlantic and Georgia promotions basically combine into one company within a few months, and Jim Crockett Promotions is billed on-air as simply "the NWA" or "World Championship Wrestling". 1986: One of Crockett's syndicated TV shows, Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, is re-named "NWA Pro Wrestling". This is the end of Crockett using the Mid-Atlantic name in any way. November 1988: Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting buys the company from Crockett. December 1990: After years of using the names "NWA" and "World Championship Wrestling" interchangeably, company is officially re-branded "WCW". The NWA name isn't mentioned again by WCW until the summer of 1992. |
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Post by Super Nintenjoe KBD on Dec 26, 2014 18:18:25 GMT -5
Jim Crockett promotions was several southern territories, right? No, just one. Here's what happened: I love posts like these so much, informative and concise, thanks! |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2014 9:55:36 GMT -5
The NWA was always a governing body or a collection of promotions, rather than just one promotion. That's where a lot of people get confused. JCP/WCW was just the one with the most visibility due to being on TBS. They finally left the NWA in 1993, as did several others, including NJPW. What was left of the NWA at that point was just a bunch of smaller promotions. The only one with a TV show was ECW, so they ended up hosting the tournament to crown the new champion. The winner of that was Shane Douglas, who threw the belt down after winning it. ECW left the NWA when that happened. At that point, none of the remaining promotions had any form of TV. Dennis Coralluzzo, Howard Brody, and Steve Rickard then had the task of trying to keep it alive. They were able to do so, but it then became essentially a collection of independent promotions, until NWA-TNA was created.
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Dragonfly
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Post by Dragonfly on Dec 28, 2014 15:49:23 GMT -5
Dennis Coralluzzo, Howard Brody, and Steve Rickard then had the task of trying to keep it alive. They were able to do so, but it then became essentially a collection of independent promotions, until NWA-TNA was created. The NWA almost had a TV show in 2001, but not many people know about it. If I may extremely long-winded for a moment: NWA East promoter Jim Miller took over for Howard Brody as president in 2001. At the time, Miller was the undisputed king of Pittsburgh wrestling, running a three-way brand split (PWX, the Smackdown-esque PWL and the PPV-equivalent NWA East). He also was integral in helping get the fledgling CWF promotion off the ground. He had no real competition either. PWX alternative Steel City Wrestling folded in 2000 when promoter Norm Connors retired, and replacement promotion Far North Wrestling spread itself too thin. (For reasons unknown by anyone, FNW tried to position itself as the followup to both SCW and ECW. The Steel City shows were promoted as "Far North," while the hardcore shows were known as "FN'W.") Unless glorified tribute booking was your thing, the amalgamated, NWA-sanctioned promotions of Jim Miller were your only bet. In April, Miller and his head booker, wrestler/popular DJ/general local celebrity Bubba the Bulldog was approached by DirecTV about starting a TV show for their fledgling Freeview network. A Pittsbugh-based wrestling talk show was already doing decently for them, and they wanted to see if they could expand. The new promotion would be owned and booked by Bubba, but have full the backing of Miller and the NWA. It was dubbed the "International Wrestling Cartel" by the network, a name that everyone else hated. (DirecTV specifically went the word "cartel" because it sounded "dangerous.") Twelve episodes were filmed, using a combination of local/regional talent and few Indy/WCW/ECW names that worked on the cheap - namely Evan Karagias, Tracy Smothers, Chris Hero, Minoru Fujita and a then-unknown Briscoe Brothers. The announcing duties were handled by Steel City play-by-play man Jeff Gorman and Mark Madden. It was, as far as everyone was concerned, a sure-fire hit. It was such a sure thing, that the now un-retired Norm Connors started running officials IWC house shows, using guys who were deemed "too new" for TV (and Hero). The show never made it to air. In between the TV tapings and their scheduled premiere, the wrestling loving execs were fired. Their replacements got rid of everything, including the talk show and IWC. With the chance of national exposure gone, Miller and the NWA pulled their backing. All of the local talent, which was 95% of the roster, chose the sure thing (the recently reunited NWA East) over the seemingly dead upstart. Madden left as well. Left with no roster and no TV deal, Bubba fell into a deep depression. In a last-ditch effort, he sold the rights to IWC to Norm, under the proviso that he could get booked whenever he wanted. The Norm promoted, NWA-free version of IWC would eventually make TV, but it would be a far cry from DirecTV. Low-power Pittsburgh station WBGN is a lot of things, but "glamorous" certainly isn't one of them. Miller would never again step foot into an IWC ring. Notes: - Bubba the Bulldog is credited for training Kurt Angle. He also was the person who got the family of Connor Michalek in touch with the WWE. Bubba says that the shows still exist, but are "sitting in a warehouse somewhere." - Freeview is now known as "The Audience Netowrk." The executives that took over in 2001 run the station to this day. - Norm Connors' "no-name" house show roster included the likes of Christopher Daniels, CM Punk, Colt Cabana and a bit later on, Sterling James Keenan (Corey Graves). - While it technically evolved from the house shows, the modern version of IWC counts the TV tapings as a part of their lineage. - Unlike the aborted IWC project, NWA-TNA wasn't designed to get the NWA over. According to his book about the formation of TNA, Jerry Jarrett felt the NWA name would give his promotion instant prestige. - Jim Miller, however, did make it to national TV sort of - he appeared on TNA's July 3rd, 2002 PPV. - PWX is still in business. They left the NWA when Bruce Tharpe took over a few years ago. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2014 18:07:48 GMT -5
Another little known fact is that in 1994, once his no-compete clause with WCW/Turner was up, Jim Crockett ran an NWA TV taping in Chattanooga, TN. The hope was to get a new TV show off the ground. Prior to that, he also experimented with taping a TV demo at the Manhattan Center in New York, using the name World Wrestling Network. Neither of those made it to a second taping, as Crockett changed his mind about wanting to get back into promoting wrestling again.
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Post by Joe Neglia on Dec 28, 2014 18:16:54 GMT -5
What other territories/promotions were still part of the NWA when WCW split? Wikipedia only has two noted, Eastern Championship and New Jersey (Coralluzzo), and the two of them had only joined the previous year. Even stalwart Portland was gone, with Don Owen having shut down and retired in '92. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Wrestling_Alliance_territories |
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Post by Joe Neglia on Dec 28, 2014 18:28:02 GMT -5
Another little known fact is that in 1994, once his no-compete clause with WCW/Turner was up, Jim Crockett ran an NWA TV taping in Chattanooga, TN. The hope was to get a new TV show off the ground. Prior to that, he also experimented with taping a TV demo at the Manhattan Center in New York, using the name World Wrestling Network. Neither of those made it to a second taping, as Crockett changed his mind about wanting to get back into promoting wrestling again. That was WWN's first TV demo (booked by Paul Heyman), but it's second actual show, with a house show in Texas a few months prior. Crockett hadn't yet changed his mind after those. He went on to start a new NWA promotion (dubbed JCP II by some) based out of the Dallas Sportatorium. Not sure how long it lasted, but I have a tape somewhere with half a dozen episodes from it. He was also affiliated with Deep South for a bit somewhere around this time. Once all that was over, he finally retired. |
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auph10imitated
Dennis Stamp
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Post by auph10imitated on Dec 29, 2014 9:10:29 GMT -5
I have been a fan for 22 years and I still have never understood the whole NWA/Crockett/WCW stuff.
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