So if Vince doesn't go national who does?

[Vice honcho room temperature]

Crockett? Gagne?... Heyman? Or is it some outsider who buys a promotion and uses that as a springboard to do so?

[El Cokehead del Knife Fight]

Honestly, Turner would have bought someone out to use as a springboard. Dude loved wrestling

[Reflecto]

The only way any company had a chance of going national is if they had cable TV before trying- and World Class/ESPN, Mid-Atlantic/TBS, and WWF/USA were the only three that had it. Hence, it's either WCCW or Mid-Atlantic that would have.

[Gerard Gerard]

Having Fritz Von Erich as head of the global 'rasslin empire seems like a fate that'd make 'Crazy Vince' stories seem extremely twee in comparison.

[thegame415]

Nov 7, 2013 1:52:53 GMT -5 El Cokehead del Knife Fight said:

Honestly, Turner would have bought someone out to use as a springboard. Dude loved wrestling

What I immediately thought.

[jimmyjames]

I think there would have been a couple of others who would have tried, but Vince an dLinda werdetermined to go national no matter what. Even if they weren't the first, they would have eventually, and still come out on top, in my opinion.

[OGBoardPoster2005]

Verne Gagne had an ESPN deal in place. I can see him doing so, he seemed pretty interested in expanding AWA.

[ICBM]

Crockett, but Turner did want in. I dint think he would have backed Vince just to get in, but possibly he would have invested in JCP NWA to keep them on turner tv. I'm the end I'm happy with what we have. Wrestling would not be the entertainment spectacle it is without McMahon's vision and expansion. Barnett said cable could not be stopped and he was right. The territorial nature of wrestling would have evolved into a national industry bc of cable no matter who expanded.But without Vince pushing Crockett, I don't think Crockett expands as rapidly

[Reflecto]

Nov 7, 2013 9:01:02 GMT -5 OGBoardPoster2005 said:

Verne Gagne had an ESPN deal in place. I can see him doing so, he seemed pretty interested in expanding AWA.

The AWA had no chance at the time- keep in mind that the AWA didn't get their ESPN deal until 1986. This is important since not only were they already left in the dust by the WWF [and the NWA had a head start on them as well], but the ESPN oral history had made it clear that that if Vince hadn't gone national, then ESPN would have never given the AWA the deal in the first place (basic story: When WWF made it big, ESPN wanted the WWF but couldn't get it from USA- and then found the NWA was covered by TBS. The AWA got their deal basically by being the biggest promotion available to ESPN.)

The only way AWA would have had a ghost of a chance to go national if Vince doesn't is if you redefine the question: If Vince doesn't go national, does he still bring Hulk Hogan in? If the answer is no, then MAYBE AWA has a chance just by having the hottest hand in the sport- but since AWA had treated Hogan poorly and wouldn't go the extra mile for him, even that's unlikely.

[Digital Witness]

I think one thing to consider is that AWA could have been the first, but didn't because of Gagne's way of doing business. A lot of the guys who could have made AWA a national entity got pissed off and headed to New York.

Its just amazing how Verne didn't understand what he had in Hogan.

[molson5]

Nov 7, 2013 3:58:21 GMT -5 Gerard Gerard said:

Having Fritz Von Erich as head of the global 'rasslin empire seems like a fate that'd make 'Crazy Vince' stories seem extremely twee in comparison.

Yes it does. But WCCW was somehow the most "modern" promotion of the time, in terms of production values, soap opera-esque storytelling, and less emphasis on presenting pro wrestling as legitimate competition. Or basically, the WWF blueprint.

[Deleted]

I'm surprised that Fritz didn't try to go national when Kerry had the NWA belt for a few weeks.

[JTG Fan]

No mentions of the UWF/Mid-South yet?


Edit: Just read that they were kicked off TBS due to an 'exclusive' contract after the Black Saturday debacle. Still, Turner might have been better off in some regards to just keep them and tell Crockett they f***ed up their big chance.

[Deleted]

Fritz had no interest in expanding. Even though their tv show was top quality and airing all over the place, all he cared about was Texas.