1970's rasslin: WWWF vs. everyone else

[Deleted]

I've been watching through every 1970's event available on the Network, which is pretty much nothing but WWWF.  It's boring as f*** and they don't seem to do anything but have matches that occur for no reason besides "ARGH I'm mean and I want your title!" 

How did the AWA and NWA territories compare in terms of having actual storylines?  I've seen a lot of isolated matches but never had access to 6 months or even 1 month of consecutive shows where I could gauge the quality of their television product.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Well nwa had a lot more storylines because of all the territories, meanwhile the AWA was Verne Gagne’s circle jerk.

[Toilet Paper Roll]

In the tapes I’ve watched one thing a lot of the regionals seemed to have was studio TV where they’d have interviews, confrontations and he sort

[Milkman Norm]

In general angles happened at the house so people had to pay to see it. TV's were commercials for up coming live events. It was in the late 80's that the move towards doing big angles on TV and losing the house shows to work towards TV started ramping up.

[Deleted]

Mar 6, 2019 17:25:20 GMT -5 Milkman Norm said:

In general angles happened at the house so people had to pay to see it. TV's were commercials for up coming live events. It was in the late 80's that the move towards doing big angles on TV and losing the house shows to work towards TV started ramping up.

Thing is, in the 80's they used their TV show to hype up their big feuds and promote the arena shows.  I've watched hour after hour after hour of All Star Wrestling and it's just jobber matches and random pairings of babyfaces against Mikel Scicluna and Jose Estrada.  Vince doesn't plug anything or try to sell an arena show.  One week there'll be a new champion and they don't even interview them or talk about how they acquired the title.  When they do interview someone, it's just Fred Blassie calling people pencil neck geeks for 5 minutes.

[Joe Neglia]

WWWF was very, very basic in its storytelling. Most of the guys were just there to win and maybe move up the card. Angles were mostly kept to the, again, basic - injury, title chase, heel turn on tag partner, disputed three-counts, that sort of thing. Every once in a while they'd get more creative or outlandish, like the Executioners gaining a third member who illegally stood in during title defenses, causing the 'Skutes to be stripped of the titles (basically, the prototype for when Demolition brought Crush in). Mostly though, bigger angles were reserved for the title-holders, Andre and a couple of higher-card folk that.

A lot of this was that the company just didn't feel they needed it. The NY crowd of the era...New York itself, really...they didn't have time for nonsense. They were there to watch guys punch and kick each other, they didn't want a lot of distractions from that. Very meat and potatoes. Also why they kept mostly to the aforementioned punch and kick between holds, and not as many other impact moves. I've often wondered if they didn't bother getting more creative simply because they were catering to several minority and ethnic groups that they felt the crowds would be fine with just seeing "their guy" on the card getting a win.

[cjh]

Mar 6, 2019 17:57:17 GMT -5 @oldbaby said:

Mar 6, 2019 17:25:20 GMT -5 Milkman Norm said:

In general angles happened at the house so people had to pay to see it. TV's were commercials for up coming live events. It was in the late 80's that the move towards doing big angles on TV and losing the house shows to work towards TV started ramping up.

Thing is, in the 80's they used their TV show to hype up their big feuds and promote the arena shows.  I've watched hour after hour after hour of All Star Wrestling and it's just jobber matches and random pairings of babyfaces against Mikel Scicluna and Jose Estrada.  Vince doesn't plug anything or try to sell an arena show.  One week there'll be a new champion and they don't even interview them or talk about how they acquired the title.  When they do interview someone, it's just Fred Blassie calling people pencil neck geeks for 5 minutes.

The hype for house shows happened in the local promos that aired during the commercial breaks.  The actual show itself had to have its tape shared among the TV stations airing it (often taking 2-3 weeks to complete its run), so it did not hype one particular event over another.

[johnnyk9]

Vince Sr. had some awesome cards