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Post by ianriccaboni on Apr 6, 2022 15:46:07 GMT -5
Vince would have most likely gone under. He was under a deal where he was making payments on the territory to his father and partners. If he missed any payments he lost the promotion and forfeited the money already paid. I dont think any of them would have wanted a damaged promotion so they would have tried to find another buyer. Other promotions were already eyeing national expansion. They simply were not as impatient or ruthless as Vince. Crockett might have tried moving into New York. With that exposure he might have been able to avoid some of his issues. Crockett had already moved into NYC, Philly, and Baltimore by 1984, FWIW |
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Post by ianriccaboni on Apr 6, 2022 15:48:11 GMT -5
Something I had never really thought about until just now, but I wonder how different the in-ring product would’ve looked had someone other than McMahon gone national first. The WWF style was a lot less intense compared to what Watts and Crockett and their ilk were offering, so I wonder if that would’ve still become a throwback style like it became viewed as, or ended up the pervasive mainstream US style of wrestling. Georgia, Crockett, AWA, and WCCW already had TV well into different geographies and internationally for over a year by the time WM 1 happened, again for whatever it is worth. |
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nisidhe
Hank Scorpio
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Post by nisidhe on Apr 6, 2022 16:13:56 GMT -5
Something I had never really thought about until just now, but I wonder how different the in-ring product would’ve looked had someone other than McMahon gone national first. The WWF style was a lot less intense compared to what Watts and Crockett and their ilk were offering, so I wonder if that would’ve still become a throwback style like it became viewed as, or ended up the pervasive mainstream US style of wrestling. Georgia, Crockett, AWA, and WCCW already had TV well into different geographies and internationally for over a year by the time WM 1 happened, again for whatever it is worth. This is true, and other wrestling promotions such as UWF were quickly making inroads onto national and international TV as well - and the VHS market was absolutely exploding for all of them and more. Were any of them ready to consider national expansion on the scale we saw with WWE? I'm honestly not sure. Vince has connections in New York to get him knowledge about TV, about national and global expansion and about popular culture in general (look for Andy frickin' Warhol in the locker room after the Brawl to End it All show.) The other promoters didn't - at least, not to the streams of pop culture and _money_ that were everywhere in the media in 1984. Throughout the South you had the Bible Belt influence and country music elements which didn't necessarily play as well in the Northeast, while Los Angeles was pretty much dead as a market no matter who'd run it. |
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Post by Jaws the Shark on Apr 6, 2022 16:53:54 GMT -5
Something I had never really thought about until just now, but I wonder how different the in-ring product would’ve looked had someone other than McMahon gone national first. The WWF style was a lot less intense compared to what Watts and Crockett and their ilk were offering, so I wonder if that would’ve still become a throwback style like it became viewed as, or ended up the pervasive mainstream US style of wrestling. Georgia, Crockett, AWA, and WCCW already had TV well into different geographies and internationally for over a year by the time WM 1 happened, again for whatever it is worth. Oh yeah, even Southwest actually made it onto cable/satellite TV in Europe, around the same time it got a slot on USA, I think. That's actually what got me thinking about this, I was reading something on the net recently about how in Europe at the time you had the WWF on what was then the Sky Channel and Southwest on Screensport, and they were two of the first forays into Europe by American promoters, but the styles were so vastly different. Obviously Southwest was finished by the time the first Wrestlemania rolled around, but it got me wondering about what would've happened.
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Post by Stone Coke Miami Watson 🥃 on Apr 6, 2022 17:24:10 GMT -5
What if WM 1 had flopped? Bruno Sammartino would STILL be the champion |
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