The NWA-Where did it all go wrong???

[willywonka666]

World Class defecting hurt things a bit, Of course it hurt World Class most-that was THE time to stick together

[hutter]

midnightrider said:

Very good answers by Nature Boy,Mamacita, and Toonces; I'd say that pretty much covers how wrestling history recounts the fall of the NWA.Personally,I still think most of the blame lies with Crockett,how pretty much split up the NWA "blanket"(i.e. te entire "regional affiliates/touring champion"philosopy that gave the NWA it's appeal) to try and go head to head with the WWF,who already had alot of momentum what with the whole Hulkamania deal.What saddens me the most is that the WWF/NWA "Wars" saw the popularization of the "Buy the other companies' big name guys just for the sake of burying them to destroy theit marketability" maneuver,still used today,and which, IMO,is one of the big causes of frustration among many fans.

Yep. There were so many things contributing to how things went to hell. And unfortunate, especially when you see how the NWA handled a previous competitor that tried to go national in the 70's (ICW/IWA, not the Poffo group). In that case, the NWA partners worked together, and nowadays, who even remembers ICW? Exactly. They could have done the same when VKM went national, but by then, the NWA partners were too busy backstabbing each other to take care of business.

[Timmy8271]

willywonka666 said:

World Class defecting hurt things a bit, Of course it hurt World Class most-that was THE time to stick together

That and the Von Erich's killing themselves and Ken Mantell leaving.

[DASH 243✅]

sidewinder572 said:

As far as NWA goes. I think it was Ice Cube who left the group first to pursue a solo career. They did release another album after his departure but it just wasn't the same.

he was way better in westside connection anyway

[willywonka666]

I finally got to watch part of the "Monday Night Wars" dvd-Damn-You'd think Vince would appreciate someone with "Ruthless Aggression" He's got no room to complain after how he killed SEVERAL territories and promotions, and he felt WCW and Turner were trying to "Hurt" him. Geeez

[Deleted]

Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin at Starrcade would be a problem. It was obvious, even as a young mark, that Ron Garvin was just keeping the belt warm for Ric to regain it. It's a lot like Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter at WM VII, why watch the event when the result is inevitable?

Magnum TA's car accident, which resulted in his career prematurely ending, hit the NWA hard as well.

[willywonka666]

sandman said:

Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin at Starrcade would be a problem. It was obvious, even as a young mark, that Ron Garvin was just keeping the belt warm for Ric to regain it. It's a lot like Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter at WM VII, why watch the event when the result is inevitable?

Magnum TA's car accident, which resulted in his career prematurely ending, hit the NWA hard as well.

Hogan/Slaughter was obvious, but so many ppv's are even more obvious today

[Midnight Rider]

sandman said:

Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin at Starrcade would be a problem. It was obvious, even as a young mark, that Ron Garvin was just keeping the belt warm for Ric to regain it. It's a lot like Hulk Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter at WM VII, why watch the event when the result is inevitable?

Magnum TA's car accident, which resulted in his career prematurely ending, hit the NWA hard as well.

Yeah,the way i heard it the whole Garvin/Flair angle played out because Flair wanted to win the Worid Title at Starrcade,the thing was noone wanted to step in and be the "Place Holder for Flair,if you will;finally Ron Garvin stepped up and agreed to do it.

I definitely agree on Magnum TA as well,he was getting the Goldberg-esque push and had the talent and charisma that the NWA could have run a nice long feud with Flair and made some serious money(much like David Von Erich was working toward at the time of his accidental death),unfortunately the car accident put an end to that.

Other things you could also factor are in are Sam Muchnick,if he had still been around in a more active role he probably would have had the clout to stop the infighting and get everyone working together to try and muscle the WWF out.

In a way you can even factor in Ole Anderson;when he took control of GCW,he cut a backroom deal and sold out GCW's prime-time slot on TBS to the WWF (the "Black Saturday" incident),that really hurt as after WWF went national on USA it was the only National Prime Time programming the NWA had that they could use as a vehicle to compete with the WWF.

[kingoftheindies]

willywonka666 said:

World Class defecting hurt things a bit, Of course it hurt World Class most-that was THE time to stick together

actually what really hurt World Class was Fritz's belief that they didn't need to go National (despite the fact that they were the most watched promotion in the early 80's)

[T Vang is a HO-DADDY~!]

kingoftheindies said:

willywonka666 said:

World Class defecting hurt things a bit, Of course it hurt World Class most-that was THE time to stick together

actually what really hurt World Class was Fritz's belief that they didn't need to go National (despite the fact that they were the most watched promotion in the early 80's)

From what it sounds like, they were so close to going national in terms of popularity but they didn't pull the trigger. I wasn't around, but is this about right?

[Timmy8271]

They had a deal with ESPN but really, Once David died, it was the beginning of the end.

[willywonka666]

timmy8271 said:

They had a deal with ESPN but really, Once David died, it was the beginning of the end.

Actually I only recall "Legends of World Class Championship Wrestling" on ESPN in 1988 or so-which was made of repeats from the glory years

[kswolf]

willywonka666 said:

timmy8271 said:

They had a deal with ESPN but really, Once David died, it was the beginning of the end.

Actually I only recall "Legends of World Class Championship Wrestling" on ESPN in 1988 or so-which was made of repeats from the glory years

Actually, if you watched on Fridays the "Legends" show was fairly up-to-date. On Tuesdays through Thursdays you would get old shows from the glory years, but the Friday shows were generally only a couple of weeks old. They seemed to be repackaging their syndicated program into "Legends" episodes at a pretty fast pace at that point.

[Joe Newberry]

There are of course the NWA's other attempts to revive itself, through ECW, then the WWF cooperation, and finally with TNA. I was talking directly to NWA promoters at the time they started up NWA-TNA, Bill Behrens in person at NWA Wildside shows, and Richard Arpin and a few others on the NWA forums, and I was begging them, along with many, many other sane people, for them not to call it TNA, to not have slutty girls for managers or pole dancers, to not have men dressed as living penises (who puts real, by-god twins under masks anyway?), not to bring in NASCAR drivers for angles, to try to promote the thing that made the NWA different in the first place. Less sports entertainment, more wrestling. They nodded right along, and said what good points we fans made, and then I bought that debut episode and when Jeff Jarrett started telling all the legends present, "You never won your title in a Gauntlet match!" I was agreeing right along that a Gauntlet for the Gold was a dumb idea. And when Ken Shamrock won the title it felt like a really poor choice. I'm sure Antonio Inoki and whoever was actually running Zero One at the time were thrilled another shooter like Dan Severn had the title, but look how long he held it before the money wasn't right and he left. Ken Shamrock didn't have the charisma, in my opinion, to be the flag bearer for a struggling attempt to get the NWA back on its feet. I was also leary at the time about them saying that TNA would have special membership, that the board would not be as actively involved. It basically just seemed like Jerry Jarrett was going to use the name to boost some mild recognition, put the belts out there for the same reason, and then start preparing for the day he'd cut the strings and run off with whatever success the NWA board could help him get before he went out on his own. TNA got off to a lousy start. The strength of the NWA would have been to showcase the local promotions that were trying to start up at the time as well. I kept begging them to do a wrap-up type show with maybe a half hour or an hour dedicated to showing matches from other promotions, so people were aware NWA wrestling was in their area, and then you could rotate out the talent on the big PPV show like in the old days.

I joined the freaking NWA Fan Club because I was so gung ho for it to work. I got my laminated membership card (GA#00001), my NWA official rule book, my NWA logo patch, and that was it. I never got my quarterly newsletter or my e-mail updates, or anything else from it. NWA Wildside wouldn't even honor my membership card discount. Then Bill Behrens decided to go work for the WWF/E, and that was the end of Wildside being any good anyway.

The point being that the new NWA had a chance to make a comeback, but once again no one wanted to work together, and the promoters thought everybody would be okay with watching a WWF/E cookie cutter replica with the NWA logo slapped on it. Once I saw that my interest in the revival waned as well. I've tried to come back to TNA as the next best thing to the real NWA, but now that they've severed all ties completely, I can't even look to them anymore. The current NWA just seems like a shadow of its former self. Using legend's names for the brackets of their NWA title tournament, but not putting any really well known, established competitors. I can only assume everyone who has ever in any way been a threat to or a holder of the NWA World title, is dead, retired, or under contract to another promotion. The NWA title becomes more and more worthless the more 20 something indy guys hold it with no experience, no name recognition, and then defend it just in their local promotion because no promoter can afford to bring the champion in anymore. I feel ridiculous lamenting the territory system when I bearly got to experience the very last gasp of it, but I have read enough about it to have dream sequence cloud border visions of what it would be like to have the potential for surprise arrivals from out of town and loser leaves town matches that would really see someone go away for months or be repackaged so that you couldn't recognize them anymore.

I don't know that the NWA will ever be great again. Not as long as people just use it as a more and more watered down crutch to help make their little promotion seem important.