Other botched coup attempts in promotions?(like CM Punk)

[Glitch]

Just like Punk's attempt during the media scrum, what are other examples of somebody trying to grab power and having it fail spectacularly?

[Mozenrath]

I feel like AwamoriRock will know a bunch of joshi promotions this happened with. They seem to thrive on chaos.

Antonio Inoki founded NJPW due to getting fired from JWA when he attempted to take over the company. JWA was the wrestling company that Rikidozan basically established and the only game in town for some time. When he died, Giant Baba and Inoki were the big stars holding the company above water for a while until Inoki got frustrated and attempted a coup. I do not know why it failed, however. Giant Baba just chose not to renew his contract with JWA the next year, as he wanted to go his own way, too, and the JWA collapsed, with NJPW and AJPW rising from its ashes.

[chazraps]

Didn't someone try this in the late-aughts / early 2010s with "Unpredictible" Johnny Rodz's WUW in New York? My memory of it is vague, but didn't The Musketeer go rogue on some promo videos that lead to an attempted and/or brief schism?

We're talking super minutiae of established east coast indys here, but there was something around that time of a divided locker room. I could be way off, but it rings something of a bell.

[chazraps]

Wait, how could I forget 2001's Main Event Championship Wrestling (MECW)?

You know, the one wrestling show that *didn't* cancel it's SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 event?

The locker room was essentially divided between the ECW alumni who really wanted an new promotion to succeed and the WCW alumni who tried to drain a financial backer for as long as they could and, as a result, blew the company's budget in their attempted coup.

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

I mean, the whole deal that killed Knoxville for several years could probably count here, right?

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

Not sure if this counts but Tod Gordon and Bill Alfonso going behind Paul Heyman's back to try an ECW/WCW invasion storyline has to at least be mentioned.

[thegatewaydrug]

Hall and Nash's attempted takeover of WCW ultimately failed.

[Sephiroth]

My memory is very fuzzy on this so feel free to correct me. Shane Douglas debuted in XPw announcing he was going to take the promotion “to the next level” or some generic nonsense like that. Rob Black was trying to use Douglas to boost XPW’s status as the heir to ECW and to kickoff an effort to build a presence for the promotion on the eastern seaboard.XPW never staged another ppv and lost their west coast tv coverage not long after.

[Cyno]

Does Bischoff and Hogan taking over TNA count? The attempt seemed like a success but the end result was complete failure.

[Celexa Bliss 54]

How many attempts have actually succeeded? The only two I know of are Black Saturday and Misawa taking nearly the entire AJPW roster AND their TV deal when he formed NOAH. Otherwise, I feel like most coup attempts failed miserably.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Sept 27, 2022 0:29:13 GMT -5 Celexa Bliss 54 said:

How many attempts have actually succeeded? The only two I know of are Black Saturday and Misawa taking nearly the entire AJPW roster AND their TV deal when he formed NOAH. Otherwise, I feel like most coup attempts failed miserably.

Depending on how you want to define it, the situation around TNA's ownership involving Corgan and Anthem could count as a coup. A coup overseen by the then-owner of the company trying to transfer ownership to someone other than the person she'd sold it to, but therein lies how ultraf***ed that whole situation was, I guess.

[Rave]

Sept 26, 2022 20:29:24 GMT -5 Cyno said:

Does Bischoff and Hogan taking over TNA count? The attempt seemed like a success but the end result was complete failure.

They were willingly handed the keys to the kingdom, so no, I wouldn't consider it a coup.

[Mozenrath]

Sept 27, 2022 0:29:13 GMT -5 Celexa Bliss 54 said:

How many attempts have actually succeeded? The only two I know of are Black Saturday and Misawa taking nearly the entire AJPW roster AND their TV deal when he formed NOAH. Otherwise, I feel like most coup attempts failed miserably.

Jerry Jarrett successfully took Memphis from Nick Gulas. Jarrett had worked with Gulas and expanded the territory, widening its reach. The conflict came when Gulas wanted him to use George Gulas, Nick's son, in the towns he was running. Jarrett refused. George was seemingly a nice enough guy, though sheltered, but he was not a good wrestler, and Gulas was trying to make him a top star. Gulas told him that he had to, and Jarrett basically was the precursor to Misawa in that he and Lance Russell took the TV deal and basically almost any relevant stars in the territory similarly to Kawada staying in AJPW, I think at least one or two notable people stayed under Nick, but it wasn't many.

Nick was a member of the NWA, and they should have had his back, but most of the promoters decided to stay out of it and let Jarrett destroy Gulas. Nick Gulas' approach to promotion was seen as dated by the others, and Jerry represented new blood. I think only The Sheik backed Gulas and lent aid, with it not being nearly enough. Once Gulas conceded and left wrestling promotion, the NWA gladly embraced Jarrett. In truth, I also suspect that the NWA saw that Gulas was outgunned, and didn't want to back him and risk losing the battle, something that'd have been rather humiliating for them.

[Mozenrath]

Sept 27, 2022 2:28:34 GMT -5 Rave said:

Sept 26, 2022 20:29:24 GMT -5 Cyno said:

Does Bischoff and Hogan taking over TNA count? The attempt seemed like a success but the end result was complete failure.

They were willingly handed the keys to the kingdom, so no, I wouldn't consider it a coup.

Yep, that wouldn't be a coup, just Dixie being taken in by flattery from names she knew, but whose ideas would prove to be outdated or misguided.

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

Sept 27, 2022 2:32:03 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Sept 27, 2022 0:29:13 GMT -5 Celexa Bliss 54 said:

How many attempts have actually succeeded? The only two I know of are Black Saturday and Misawa taking nearly the entire AJPW roster AND their TV deal when he formed NOAH. Otherwise, I feel like most coup attempts failed miserably.

Jerry Jarrett successfully took Memphis from Nick Gulas. Jarrett had worked with Gulas and expanded the territory, widening its reach. The conflict came when Gulas wanted him to use George Gulas, Nick's son, in the towns he was running. Jarrett refused. George was seemingly a nice enough guy, though sheltered, but he was not a good wrestler, and Gulas was trying to make him a top star. Gulas told him that he had to, and Jarrett basically was the precursor to Misawa in that he and Lance Russell took the TV deal and basically almost any relevant stars in the territory similarly to Kawada staying in AJPW, I think at least one or two notable people stayed under Nick, but it wasn't many.

Nick was a member of the NWA, and they should have had his back, but most of the promoters decided to stay out of it and let Jarrett destroy Gulas. Nick Gulas' approach to promotion was seen as dated by the others, and Jerry represented new blood. I think only The Sheik backed Gulas and lent aid, with it not being nearly enough. Once Gulas conceded and left wrestling promotion, the NWA gladly embraced Jarrett. In truth, I also suspect that the NWA saw that Gulas was outgunned, and didn't want to back him and risk losing the battle, something that'd have been rather humiliating for them.

Jarrett has also said that he paid Nick, I want to say either 10 or $15000 to buy into the company as Nick’s partner Roy Welch was winding down. When Nick and Jerry began to have disputes, Jerry reminded him that he had bought in as a partner to run the Memphis end of the company. Nick told him something like, “No, what you bought was an option to become a partner. And that’s expired.”

We know how everything turned out.

[Celexa Bliss 54]

Now that I think about it, Shane Douglas throwing down the NWA title was a coup by Tod Gordon and Paul E. They wanted out of the NWA and it absolutely worked.

[1 Free Moon-Down with Burger]

What the hell happened when Corgan had control of Impact and then suddenly didn’t

[Rave]

Sept 27, 2022 7:25:31 GMT -5 1 Free Moon-Down with Burger said:

What the hell happened when Corgan had control of Impact and then suddenly didn’t

When Corgan funded Impact, his agreement with them included a clause where he'd get ownership of the company if they ever became insolvent. Apparently he failed to properly implement said clause with the state of Tennessee, so his lawsuit no longer had a legal leg to stand on.

[kingoftheindies]

Sept 26, 2022 19:58:03 GMT -5 Sephiroth said:

My memory is very fuzzy on this so feel free to correct me. Shane Douglas debuted in XPw announcing he was going to take the promotion “to the next level” or some generic nonsense like that. Rob Black was trying to use Douglas to boost XPW’s status as the heir to ECW and to kickoff an effort to build a presence for the promotion on the eastern seaboard.XPW never staged another ppv and lost their west coast tv coverage not long after.

So to add it was a bit more of a cluster. Long story short, a lot of checks bounced. I'm pretty sure in the case of issues with the ECW arena (which XPW paid to get exclusive rights to) there was also an issue of housing the Extreme Associates porn dvds... I don't believe they filmed there but I remember stories coming out that once the owners of the arena found the arena being used as a warehouse they ended the agreement. Then the feds coming after Black killed everything.

On the topic of this thread, pretty sure Hogan/Bischoff were trying to convince Dixie to sell TNA to them, or at least make Eric in charge of everything.

[MrElijah]

The whole Ann Gunkle vs. The NWA thing for Georgia.