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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2021 6:30:14 GMT -5
Dec 7, 87
"Thanksgiving is over and done with as I write this, but it's too soon to get any real feel as to how well financially Starcade and the Survivors Series went. I don't even have a clue as to Survivors, although my gut feeling is it did well and besides serving its purpose to hurt Crockett, made some money as well. Starcade sold out in Chicago, and did decent business in at least a few cities I've gotten reports from and did horrendously in a few others"
"You can already guess what I'm about to write about Starcade. The lighting and picture framing wasn't good and the live camera missed several key shots during the card (Sting's dive through the ropes, J.J. attacking Weaver and stealing the key, the ref bump during the Dusty match)"
"The interviews were a waste of time, mainly to kill time while putting up the cage and taking down the scaffold and the NWA's best interviews (Flair and Cornette) never talked and Michael Hayes just stood there while Jimmy Garvin obviously was killing time. I'm still not sure what purpose all the Crockett announcers had for being there (at least Missy looked good in her black dress, but why did they have three others to conduct interviews?)."
"Dumbest booking move—The finish of the Road Warriors vs. Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson match. Unfortunately the NWA brass doesn't spend as much time talking with its audience as I do and they don't realize just how much trouble they are in. They are losing fans at a rapid pace (your TV numbers dropping 40% in eight weeks tells the tale) and it was very important not to piss fans off with a screwed finish in the Warriors match since they are the ones "most over" with the fans. So what do they do?"
"Best booking job—Dusty Rhodes for the finish of the Dusty Rhodes vs. Lex Luger match"
"Worst booking job—Dusty Rhodes for almost everything else at Starcade, but if I had to pick one finish, It was Steve Williams vs. Barry Windham"
"Best front office decision—Keeping David Crockett from teaming with Tony Schiavone on the play-by-play for Starcade"
"Best portion of a match—The final three minutes of Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin which saved an otherwise forgettable match"
"In the most amazing part of the match, Cornette tossed the racket to Bobby who caught it on the fly and considering Bobby was on a scaffold and Cornette was never a baseball pitcher with pinpoint control, it was impressive."
"Nikita Koloff pinned Terry Taylor in 18:20 to win the unification of the NWA and UWF television titles. The first 10:30 of this were so bad it was quickly becoming THE favorite for worst match of the year....Everything leading up to the match was an example of how not to run a promotion, including the choice of the winner for many reasons. Actually at this point, the right guy won because they've been burying Taylor so much on television that it would have been ridiculous now to let him go over"
"The reason the Roadies didn't enter to "Iron Man" (and their entrance got a worse reaction then it would have with the right music) is because this was going on a video and you can't use other artists music on a video which is for sale, but you can on free television if the artist doesn't complain."
"The finish saw Tommy Young take his referee bump, Animal throw Arn over the top ropes, ref Earl Hebner came to the ring and counted the fall on Arn as they did the clothesline off the top ropes on him. Is there anyone in the world who wants to see that finish? They should have retired it a long time ago, let alone brought it out for their biggest card of the year. I realize the problems inherent in letting the Roadies have the belts, however this was the time to do it"
"Dusty Rhodes pinned Lex Luger (his robe now spells the last name "Luger" and I figure if anyone knows how to spell it, it's him) in 16:00 to win the U.S. title in the cage match....Luger tried to get him up for the backbreaker and it didn't work out. Even though they pretend Dusty weighs 270 and Lex 277, it looked like an ant trying to carry a watermelon"
"The main event was scheduled to have the Sheepherders defend the UWF tag belts against the New Breed in a cage match, however both Chris Champion and the cage were no-shows. Instead it was a regular match against Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner and the fans who were there were pissed off. They were even madder since the bout went 5:30 before Horner got the flagpole (Ace had been using it) and used it and the ref DQ'd him for it"
"They were supposed to have one hour of live matches before Starcade, but these matches were so short they had a 27 minute intermission before Starcade even started."
"The other big card of the past week was the NWA's debut at the Nassau Coliseum in New York on the day before Starcade and Thanksgiving, 11/25. Actually running a big card the night before was probably why most guys were "off" at Starcade and in effect, helped ruin the Starcade show. However most all reports were the Nassau card was excellent. Gate was in the $150,000 range so crowd was around 11,500"
"The letters warning of the future were those printed six months ago when JCP was still riding high and too cocky to see the obvious long-term problems. Judging from TV ratings, the flood of letters here came at about the time 25% of the "marks" had already quit watching the product, or a few weeks too late to react"
"The NWA can't come back to Boston because the Gardens would only rent them that one date as an experiment. Even though they drew a huge crowd and a $142,000 gate, the Gardens hasn't been willing to rent to the NWA for a return visit. While on the surface some might find that confusing, the bottom line is, if they did, than Titan would cancel at least half of its dates in the Garden and run bi-monthly, and probably threaten to pull out totally so economically the folks at the Garden must feel not renting to the NWA is in their best interest."
"As for the UWF situation and Florida as well, I am not nearly as strongly opposed to Crockett merging everything into one circuit as many readers are. I truly believe that to compete with a national promotion, you have to run a national promotion. With national cable and national syndication, there is no reason why a WELL-RUN promotion with marketable stars can't be successful without being regional."
"The UWF merging into the NWA was inevitable, just as Titan's expansion moves in 1984 that everyone complained about were also inevitable. However, the manner in which the "merger" took place and the current aftermath have been an example of some poor decision-making. They could have announced a merger after the summer and started setting up the unification matches. Instead, Crockett and Dusty, in trying to show NWA superiority, went out and publicly made a mockery of the UWF promotion, which alienated a large portion of fans in the Mid South/Southwest area (where in fact, they were planning on moving their base of operations). If you take away Flair and the Warriors, there isn't one NWA wrestler any more marketable or significantly better a worker than the top UWF guys, yet not one UWF wrestler has main evented or been pushed even as high as Ron Garvin or Arn Anderson."
"Steve Williams and the Taylor/Gilbert act had the potential to revitalize what had become a stale NWA main event crew. Instead, Williams was ignored, and Taylor/Gilbert were buried because of ego clashes between the NWA and UWF boys—clashes which should never have been put up with for more than a week by the administration—yet are still going on today. The already set-up UWF angles should’ve blended into the major promotion, but instead they were dropped as if they had never happened."
"The NWA badly needed and still needs new faces in the focal angles, and they had a whole crew of good, and a few great performers, and slapped them down simply because as one person told me, the inmates are running the asylum there. With the correct build-up, wouldn't Steve Williams, Terry Gordy, Michael Hayes, Barry Windham or Terry Taylor all have been more effective than Ron Garvin in the role of interim champion? Shouldn't Williams, and not Ellering, been in the War Games? Shouldn't the build-up to the unification match between Nikita and Taylor focused around the ability of both and been presented to the fans as a power vs. ability confrontation rather than an NWA vs. UWF squash match?"
"As I write this, eight months after Crockett bought out Watts, the former Watts employees still are pushed and treated like stepchildren which not only is terrible for morale, but makes terrible business sense. At the same time, the UWF fans have seen their favorites either disappear or get buried and instead of being excited by the new promotion providing the best of the "two best wrestling promotions" are staying away in droves"
Dec 21, 87
"While Starcade did sellout Chicago and drew well on closed-circuit throughout the Eastern seaboard, apparently the Crocketts were very disappointed with the final gate figure. As a pure speculative guess, I'd figure it was slightly more than $1 million."
"Crockett's Bunkhouse Stampedes thus far have been disappointing at the gate in almost every case, to the point where that company had better re-evaluate its business or it will probably lose its status as a so-called major league promotion."
"As expected, Dusty is pulling out all the stops to try and break the downward momentum. The most talked about thing is the turning of Lex Luger. Luger turned on 12/2 in Miami Beach during a card which was taped for airing on WTBS, during a Bunkhouse Stampede before just under 2,000 fans. The Stampede came down to Luger, J.J. Dillon, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. J.J. asked his comrades that they let him win because he wanted to go in the record books as a stampede winner, so Tully & Arn both eliminated themselves. Luger, however, threw J.J. over the top to win it. Since then there have been several confrontations between Tully & Arn & J.J. against Lex. In my mind, turning Lex was the second best thing they could have done, which I guess spells the difference between them and Titan. Titan generally does the best thing it could do, not the second best."
"Luger really could have used another year or two as a heel because even though he's made tremendous strides in the last year, he is still not a good wrestler. But in reality, these are desperate times and they needed to do something major. Certainly Luger has the potential to get over great as a babyface in feuds with Tully & Arn, and potentially his scraps with Flair should spell big box office if they are handled right. But unless the fans start coming back to their TV sets, it doesn't matter how hot Lex gets as a face if nobody is watching the TV"
"There are several other major things in the process of taking place. The Kevin Sullivan heel quartet of Rick Steiner, Sullivan, Steve Williams and Mike Rotunda is obvious to most viewers. There is one more major turn upcoming as well plus a plethora of new angles which are still highly confidential, but should work."
"The TV formats are being changed as well. However, the different shows being basically duplicated may continue to erode the ratings. The current plan is for each hour of syndicated television be taped for two different shows. In a specific hour, the group of matches will have two announcing teams—let's say Jack Gregory will be doing the Florida show while at the same time Jim Ross will announce the very same matches for UWF. The interviews will consist of the same guys, but different interviews done one right after the other. For instance, when Nikita does an interview, he'll talk with Gregory for the Florida show, then immediately will walk to another backdrop with Ross, and do a similar interview for UWF. Showing basically duplicated TV shows with only the announcer and the name of the show being changed has got to hurt TV ratings once fans catch on."
"On the good side, the shows have gotten a lot better with the fresh angles (but still the same stale talent on top) and longer and more competitive TV matches"
"12/6 in Charlotte saw Flair pin Sting"
"While we are on the TV subject, these guys have to stop doing those main events ending in progress on TV. I'm really not opposed to the idea personally because psychologically the idea of leaving your audience wanting more is a valid one. But right now JCP is at the point it has to give fans what they want, at least for a little while, and not turn them off, at least until the viewers have all come back"
"While the Williams turn hasn't occurred, it should take place before the end of the year. The problem here is that Williams contacted the New Japan office (where he starts on 1/4) and asked them to increase his schedule from 12 to 16 weeks per year. He said he'd be quitting the NWA in just a few weeks. I should point one thing out, Doc has threatened to quit the NWA and before that, the UWF, on a consistent basis for most of the last year but never goes through with it."
"Doc will probably be a heel by the time this airs because he was wrestling as a heel in his squashes, but the fans live didn't realize this and cheered him anyway"
"12/6 at the Omni in Atlanta drew 8,800 however the gate was still nothing spectacular since all seats were $5 for adults and kids were $1 in the balcony"
"Anderson & Blanchard & Midnight Express won an 8-man cage match from Rock & Roll & New Breed in 10:30 when Arn pinned Gibson. After the match the New Breed and the R&R had words and split up. It appeared New Breed will be turned back into heels, but one of the two is turning. Lane, Eaton and Morton all bled. Chris Champion came off the top of the cage with a move at one point."
"Christmas at the Omni has Flair vs. Windham, the Stampede, Arn & Tully vs. Garvin & Hayes, Dick Murdoch returns to wrestle Williams, Ivan Koloff vs. Wilbur and get this one—Warlord vs. Nikita"
"The UWF tag belts have been forgotten. I'm not sure what the status of the Sheepherders is, but they are no longer champions nor will the belts be talked about anymore. The Florida tag belts have also been dropped."
"Schedule for after Christmas for Bunkhouse Stampedes are: 12/25 in Charlotte, Greenville, SC and the Omni in Atlanta; 12/26 in Richmond, Detroit and Philadelphia (I believe Richmond will be in the afternoon so the crew will fly half to Detroit and half to Philly for night shows, most will work double shots on 12/25 as well); 12/28 in St. Louis; 12/29 in Savannah, GA and Albuquerque and 12/30 they will return to the Pavilion in Chicago. I'm really interested in hearing how they do in Chicago because a few folks from that city told me that they don't think the NWA can draw there after Starcade so we'll have to wait and see"
"WATL in Atlanta won't be running UWF or Power Pro anymore since Crockett and Pedicino are at odds. Not sure whose choice it was to pull the show"
"The Bunkhouse Stampede on 12/7 in Houston drew a $10,200 gate (around 800 paid). Actually Titan isn't exactly setting the World on fire either, as their 12/11 card in Houston headlined by Hogan vs. DiBiase drew less than 3,000"
"Even though most of the NWA folks have off until Christmas, Lex Luger, Road Warriors, Flair, Dusty and Steve Williams are up in Toronto this week filming a television pilot for Canadian TV. Lyle Alzado, the ex-NFL star will be the star in the movie, which is about a school teacher who moonlights as a pro wrestler. Williams will be Alzado's stand-in during all the wrestling scenes"
Dec 28, 87
"At this time last year, there were three "major league" promotions in the United States. One of them, the UWF, disappeared from the scene and was absorbed into the NWA. Yet even though the NWA picked up lots of new television outlets and new talent, and could point to some major successes in 1987, all-in-all, this year had to be a disappointment."
"All the trends continue to indicate the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, and the scariest part of the trend is, unlike last year, when the NWA was actually in strong competition with Titan for the wrestling dollar, now it appears that the "strong" may be limited to Titan itself"
"Rumors are flying everywhere about JCP's current financial situation. From the reports I've been getting, these stories are greatly exaggerated. It's premature to write off the NWA as a major league group. But at the same time, the promotion is doing worse overall than they would have expected"
"Another financial obligation facing Crockett right now is making good on the wrestlers' contracts. Unlike Titan, JCP has most of its wrestlers signed to long-term (multi-year) contracts. As a hypothetical example (the name, length of contract and numbers are just stuff I'm making up for an example, not that these figures would have any resemblance to reality), let's say Luger's contract was for $350,000 a year. That doesn't mean Luger was getting a $7,000 check each week. The guys' weekly checks are probably what they would have been without a contract, basically depending upon what the gates that week were. What the contract provides for is that when the year is up, if Luger earned less than $350,000—then Crockett would make up the difference in a year-end basis."
"Apparently most of the guys, if not all of them, will earn less, and significantly so in some cases, than their contract stipulated. So Crockett has a major financial obligation to make up in a few weeks. The thinking behind the way the contract is structured makes sense from Crockett's side. If there is a bad week, you don't run into a cash-flow problem. At the end of the year, the theory was, they would be coming off Starrcade and the Christmas season TV ad revenue, which would more than make up for any end-of-the-year obligations. That is in theory. Starcade and Christmas TV ads weren't nearly what Crockett had expected."
"Speculation is rampant as to what Crockett will or won't do. If Crockett doesn't live up to the contract, and the more you consider this possibility, the less likely it becomes, than the contracts won't be worth the paper they are printed on. The only reason the NWA guys have contracts like this in the first place is it prevents Titan, or another promotion, from signing their main eventers away. If Crockett renigs on the contract, then Titan could basically pick and choose which wrestlers they want."
"The television package has been restructured. It appears the NWA will cut down to two TV tapings per week, one taping for WTBS and the other will be an arena taping for the syndicated package. NWA Pro and Worldwide will become the "A" shows, with Jim Ross and Bob Caudle handling NWA Pro and Tony Schiavone and David Crockett doing Worldwide. The UWF show apparently will be dropped. Power Pro and CWF wrestling will continue as "B" shows, in that they will consist of matches that have already appeared on "A" shows, except with Jack Gregory doing the announcing."
"The old way, they were taping three or four nights per week doing all the different shows as first-run programming. Because pay-offs from TV tapings are much lower than from house shows in general (because production costs have to be taken off, plus because of squash matches including lots of jobbers, plus so many guys doing interviews, much more wrestlers work TV taping cards thus cutting down the pay-offs per individual), all those tapings were killing the paychecks. It also cost more in production, plus pissed off fans in many cities because they had to sit through so many squash matches."
"It was also hell on Dusty Rhodes, because he had to put together seven hours of television each week, which is why the shows degenerated into format squashes and long interviews. Nobody could come up with enough ideas to make seven hours a week interesting, and if they did, there would be so many things going on that nobody could keep up with them."
"Cutting out the UWF show and making two of the shows basically repeats, has to hurt the cumulative national rating, which in turn, will hurt ad revenue. Moreover, with the UWF show being dropped, where does that leave WPIX in New York, as Ted Turner in the past has blocked any "NWA" shows on PIX. Will Turner make a stand and put pressure on Crockett to drop WPIX and lose New York television?"
"Jim Ross has been moved to the WTBS show. This is a plus in two ways. For one, Ross is the best announcer in the promotion at describing matches. Schiavone comes off professionally, but has shortcomings doing fall-by-fall in certain situations, such as when lots of unusual holds or moves are used. Ross is also the best announcer in wrestling when it comes to describing a good match. The real benefit is it keeps David Crockett off play-by-play where he had turned into a real embarrassment to everyone"
"Right now it appears they are making too many changes at once. But it may just seem that way because so many guys have to turn to get them in the positions they should be in. The Luger turn is working, with great work from all involved, but the Rotunda, Williams, Sullivan thing seems to be getting little reaction"
"Still, the problem with stale talent at the top hasn't been rectified. There are no new wrestlers of note scheduled to come in. Even though Luger is in a fresh role, he is not a new personality and the rest of the clique are still the same guys who have been there for a year and haven't been able to draw well of late. Tully & Arn are great, but how many times can you watch them live, particularly when they almost always lose?"
"They sure have phased out Ron Garvin"
"Did you notice the NWA has just come out with a new line of Four Horseman sweatshirts to be heavily plugged in the mags just at the same time they do the Luger turn? Nothing like good advanced planning"
"Crockett originally was working on getting the Cup in Tokyo, however TV-Asahi (Inoki's network) balked at Crockett's proposition. In reality, there are too many things that couldn't be overcome even if both sides wanted it, to have the Cup in Japan. How can you push Dusty in Japan? How can you show a U.S. audience a bunch of matches with Japanese being put over your big stars? How can you show the Japanese audience a bunch of Americans beating Japanese? Will the Japanese have to change their style or the Americans have to wrestle "Japanese" style? How can you sell a bunch of Japanese tag teams to a U.S. pay-per-view public?"
"One comment I have to make regarding WTBS. Crockett takes a lot of flack for holding the shows in the studio, but that is a demand Ted Turner has for the show itself. If Crockett had his way, the show would come from an arena like his other syndicated shows. WTBS is the most-watched single pro wrestling show in the country on a single station, and it would be rather stupid for Crockett to leave the station just because they have to do the show from the studio. So while I don't agree with the format WTBS' wrestling shows had in 1987 (too short squash matches and endless interviews rushing to get too many boring characters on) it is unfair to criticize Crockett or Dusty for the fact they do the show from the studio"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2021 3:00:16 GMT -5
Jan 4, 88
"The Battle of Thanksgiving will continue so to speak, with the next go-around in the War for the Pay-Per-View dollar on January 24th. As most of you know, Jim Crockett Promotions will be presenting its Bunkhouse Stampede finals, an 11-man street fight Battle Royal of sorts with a prize ballyhooed at $500,000 (some day they are going to run into trouble on these million dollar promotions, mark my word) to a national pay-per-view audience. It will be Crockett's first ever legitimate crack at the potentially lucrative PPV market. McMahon pretty well put the squeeze to their attempts to send Starcade nationally, and this time McMahon's counter will be a television special on the USA network for free. Titan will present a Royal Rumble Battle Royal, an idea tried once in St. Louis (where it flopped miserably both from an economic standpoint—it drew 1,900 fans—and an aesthetic standpoint— by all accounts the match was a joke)."
"Because of the enormous potential of PPV wrestling as we outlined last week. Titan is going to do everything in its power to make sure JCP can't get out of the blocks. It's a debatable subject whether or not Crockett can make it on PPV on his own, and also questionable how much, if any, this head-to-head scheduling of a “live” card on the USA network for free, will hurt JCP's attempts. First off, a bunkhouse Battle Royal on its own, is not going to do big business, if they have a loaded undercard with all the hot angles, I'd surmise JCP could make a nice profit on the show."
"In theory, Titan putting on a free card would deter some viewers from spending $15 (or whatever the price is) to purchase the JCP show. However, one must remember, that just about everyone in a home which has PPV capabilities probably also has a video recorder. Titan's show will certainly be an annoyance to JCP, and it surely will hurt them at least a little, but I question whether it will make a significant difference in JCP's success or failure on this venture."
"The NWA's Christmas angle took place at the Omni where Ole Anderson re-appeared. After Lex Luger had dumped Tully Blanchard to win a Bunkhouse Stampede, Luger was then triple-teamed by Blanchard, Arn Anderson and J.J. Dillon until Uncle Ole (or brother Ole, or cousin Ole, even their own “family" members like Lars probably have a hard time keeping it straight) showed up and cleaned house leading to a 1/1 tag match at the Omni with Blanchard & Arn Anderson vs. Luger & Ole Anderson. This whole segment aired the next day on WTBS which made it timely, and certainly surprising for the majority of fans. Unfortunately, the quality of the tape (poor lighting and horrendous audio) of the angle made JCP look a lot more like an old-style regional promotion than the slick national outfit it aspires to being"
"Another major bit of news occurred just before Christmas when J.J. Bins, head of the Eastern Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, resigned from office on 12/21....Crockett's first show, on 12/26, under new commissioner Frances Walker saw Dusty pull out the blade and do a heavy number on himself as did Flair. While I accept blading as a part of the business (which doesn't necessarily make it right, because the practice comes off as barbaric and uncivilized to anyone unfamiliar with the biz) but also believe it had gotten out of control at NWA cards, my question is if a commission is so concerned with the welfare of wrestlers that it bans the practice, how can that same commission sanction a scaffold match, which is infinitely more dangerous?"
"Mighty Wilbur broke his leg on Christmas night in the bunkhouse stampede in Atlanta taking a bad bump over the top rope"
"Warlord beat former NWA World heavyweight champion Ron Garvin via count out when Garvin was outside the ring fighting with Jones who held Garvin's leg as he tried to get back in"
"12/26 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit drew 1,500 for a totally messed up show. The report I got said that every match on the card would have been rated one star or less as the guys were just exhausted from the taping in Richmond, which went overtime, then they had to fly halfway across the country and most of them arrived late. Black Bart drew Tim Horner in a long stalling match as they were waiting for other wrestlers to arrive, then Mike Rotunda pinned Italian Stallion in 15:45 with a double-arm suplex, Jimmy Garvin pinned Ivan Koloff in 29:32 with a small package, Nikita Koloff and Dick Murdoch went 20:49 before the bell sounded signalling the end of the 30:00 time limit and it was declared a draw, and then the stampede, which was supposed to have 22 men (but only had 14), ended when Road Warrior Hawk threw out Big Bubba Rogers."
"Another problem in Detroit was the local TV show didn't air any promos the week before the card, but in a sense they made up for it, as the morning after the card they ran the promos plugging the card which had already taken place"
"Just to answer the questions that are constantly being asked—the guys like The New Breed, Lightning Express, Terry Taylor, Black Bart, Scandor Akbar and a few others are still working here, however they aren't getting any kind of television exposure or a push. Dusty has pretty well created his own "C" team. Actually someone nicknamed Armstrong & Horner as the Invisible Express"
"The contract between Crockett and WTBS has apparently been changed which will allow Crockett to air NWA programming on WPIX in New York. In addition, there will be many more WTBS shows taped at arenas’ rather than in the studio. I don't think it's all been worked about but the show may wind up 75% arena tapes and maybe one studio taping per month"
"Of all the folks working here right now, the one guy that both Titan and Japan are most interested in is the same person—Big Bubba Rogers. Would have been hard to believe not terribly long ago"
"The combination live, closed-circuit and pay-per-view gate from Starcade '87 totalled $1.3 million. Roughly $820,000 came from 40 or so closed-circuit theaters (which isn't bad), maybe $180,000 came from the sellout at the Pavilion in Chicago and another $300,000 came from 20,000 pay-per-view orders around the country which constituted a nearly seven percent national buy rate (or slightly less than McMahon's Survivors' Series did)"
"Now Jim Crockett didn't lose money on Starcade, at least I can't see how he could have, although I would assume the actual profit was less than it had been the previous two years. If Crockett could have gotten Starcade on nationally on PPV, even if he had gotten a five percent national buy rate (which doesn't seem inconceivable), at cleared six million homes, you are talking 300,000 homes at $15 a head which I guess tells you about how much McMahon cost Crockett by knocking him off PPV"
"Let's hope they come up with a new finish for the Flair vs. Hawk match at Nassau on the 24th. If they do the ref bump, top rope bump and second ref counts the phony pin finish again after doing it at Starcade I think even the most naive folks will be able to see through it"
Jan 11, 88
"With three weeks to go, all I know about Crockett's second pay-per-view card on 1/24 is besides the Bunkhouse Stampede in the cage for "$500,000," also announced is Ric Flair vs. Road Warrior Hawk for the NWA title (I hope they don't do that same finish again) and Barry Windham vs. Larry Zbyszko for the Western States title. Steve Williams will definitely be on the card as Crockett is having him flown back from Japan on 1/21, although whatever dates he's booked between now and then in the States he won't be making. I just hope they turn the heat up on this over the next two weeks because the fact this show will be available on PPV hasn't been pushed heavily enough on the shows I've seen, plus, they really ought to have the complete card announced by now."
"Really, Crockett has to be commended right now because some of the bugs in their television show are being fixed, although they are certainly far from their competition. The TBS show is out of the studio and has been more lively. I don't think they realize how upset fans get and how 'minor league" it looks to end matches in progress on television. Personally I don't mind if you get a good 8-10 minutes of action spicing up the TV, but most fans I talk with hate the practice more with each passing week."
"The crowds in Atlanta and Greensboro this past week were exceptional and should boost morale, which appeared to be at an all-time low coming back from Christmas. Still, I'm hearing more complaints than compliments about the live shows. They do need to find and push hard some new faces at the top of the cards, and then need a babyface superstar to build the promotion around."
"It seems to me that Luger has already become "one of the guys," doing saves for Ron Garvin and getting saved back, etc. If Luger is pushed that way, he'll end up being the 1988 version of Nikita Koloff. Koloff was over fantastically for about three months, after which, nobody cared about the guy because he just blended in with the pack of babyfaces. It's important for the group to have one or two guys away from the pack so to speak, on a plane above the other main eventers like Hogan and Andre are with Titan."
"I truly believe that even though the Horseman as an entity were over great, that putting Flair with them, while giving them far more credibility, in the long run has some irreparable harm to Flair's drawing power. He became just another face in the pack—the key face to be sure—but he was on the same level as Tully, Arn and Luger"
"The return of Ole Anderson drew 12,700 fans to the Omni on 1/1 at regular ticket prices ($12—$10—$5)"
"Snafu of the week was when on the syndicated package they kept saying how Dusty won the wildcard berth on 1/1 in Atlanta. The problem is, the show aired on 12/31 in several markets and 1/1 in several others although it aired in most markets on 1/2. I got an awful lot of phone calls with the result before the match ever took place"
"The tape that they opened the show with (taped in mid-December in Raleigh) with Flair vs. Jimmy Garvin looked pretty hot because the run-in was unpredictable and lasted pretty long. The only problem is on the same show, with Ron Garvin vs. Arn, they showed almost the exact same run-in. Also, Garvin had Flair pinned before the run-in so they made Flair look bad again by a "non contender" type but they'll never learn"
"The other main complaint I heard all weekend is that the cameramen should spend more time focusing on the wrestling and less on the women. Showing the girls is okay but after 40 or 50 shots, and in the middle of high spots during the match, it serves no purpose. It's one thing if it's the valets, but not the girls in the audience"
"Rick Steiner actually had a major bicep tear suffered in the locker room when he was horsing around with Williams and Hawk"
"The New Breed is supposed to be a heel team now and feud with Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner around the horn, but last word I got was that Sean Royal never came back from Christmas vacation"
"12/30 in Chicago drew 3,500....This was the first card back after Starcade and you can see what the Warriors' finish in the bout with Tully & Arn did for the return crowd"
"During the break after the tag team tournament, booker Seiji Sakaguchi went to Dallas and Los Angeles to meet with Jim Crockett and also with Hiro Matsuda (who will be booking NWA talent for New Japan)....Sakaguchi is most interested in Sting and Bubba Rogers even more than JCP established names like Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, Dusty Rhodes or even Ric Flair"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2021 5:41:44 GMT -5
Jan 15, 88
"The line-up for Crockett's Nassau Coliseum card which will be broadcast nationally on pay-per-view head-to-head is one of wrestling's best-kept secrets of the year. Besides the bunkhouse finals with Dusty Rhodes, Steve Williams, Lex Luger, Road Warrior Animal, Barbarian, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, Warlord and Ivan Koloff in a cage going until one guy is left and he wins "$500,000“ they've also got Ric Flair vs. Road Warrior Hawk for the NWA title, Barry Windham vs. Larry Zbyszko for the Western States title. Rock & Roll Express vs. Sheepherders, Jimmy Garvin vs. Stan Lane, Nikita Koloff vs. Bobby Eaton and Sting vs. Mike Rotunda. Maybe that's why they're trying to keep it a secret. Seriously, putting a half-ass undercard together for the first PPV attempt makes no sense. My hunch is they are going to have enough problems just selling tickets to see the thing live."
"By the way, they've only reserved a one hour, 50 minute block for the PPV show. You know what's silly—on paper Titan has the better show, and it's for free."
"The hot news story of the week is that Titan has inked the best gimmick Dusty has come up with in the last few years. Big Bubba Rogers. With Hogan as champion, Titan needs every 350 pound gimmick they can get their hands on. How Dusty and Jim Crockett could let Bubba get away is another story. Apparently Bubba is under contract to JCP, but his contract was different than just about every big name JCP has in that it doesn't guarantee a set salary for the year, thus Titan felt they would have no problems nullifying it if it got to a legal battle. Supposedly it was just an oversight."
"Anyway, if you were confused about Dusty's sudden outburst after getting the award from Bill Apter on the TBS show on Saturday, yes the comments were directed at Titan, and my guess is losing Bubba and copying the Bunkhouse Stampede idea were the gist of what got him so upset"
"There's more to the story about Thunderfoot #1 (Joel Deaton, real name Joseph Lofton Jones) getting fired. Apparently after he was given his notice on 12/25 in Greenville, while driving home to Charlotte he allegedly ran a red light and hit a car broadside, and a 23-year-old woman who was the driver of the car he hit, died. He was arrested on 1/3 and charged not only with vehicular manslaughter, but also with two counts of passing bad checks and possession of drug paraphenalia. If convicted of these crimes, he could face a maximum five year prison term and a $5,000 fine"
"The NWA has a card 2/2 at the Knight Center in Miami, FL, which is the nicest building in the city. It's the first time they've been in the building and are running a full card that night, so should do real well. The WWF had an exclusive on the building for a long time, and several groups, most notably World Class, had been rebuffed every time they tried to book the place. Apparently Titan lost its exclusive because they weren't drawing well. A new and much larger building in Miami will be opening in about six months, so we'll see which group gets to use that place"
"Sean Royal did quit so the New Breed gig is history. The two were to turn heel and feud with the Lightning Express but Sean spoiled the plans"
"I guess the biggest surprise in Memphis is the return of Terry Taylor as a heel opposing Travis. That comes as news to me, and probably to the NWA as well if it's the case, since they put him over on television on WTBS on Sunday....Terry Taylor was under a contract. I believe his contract was to come due (when the difference between his income earned during the year and income promised—probably a sizable amount—would have to be paid) around the 1st of May (since that would mark one year since Crockett took over the UWF). Judging from what I've heard, Taylor's move to the CWA circuit won't be challenged by Crockett even though Taylor was under contract, since it was pretty well understood he didn't figure in their plans and let's just say they probably weren't all that heartbroken he quit before the contract came due"
"As for Flair joining Titan, rumors of Flair and the Road Warriors jumping continually make the rounds, and will continue to make the rounds for as long as they are Crockett's hottest acts. I'm under the assumption Flair has a long-term contract and if it's a well-written contract, I don't think Titan would want to even open up the pandora’s box like has happened in Japan by trying to get him to break it."
Jan 25, 88
"As I'm writing, the 1/24 showdown is one week away. From all indications I have and hunches from watching the hype, Crockett's pay-per-view show from Nassau is going to fail. Making a strong showing on the first pay-per-view should have been the company's top priority for the new year. I have no figures on how many potential homes they've cleared, but after talking with readers all over the country my guess is it is a lot less then they had indicated they would a few months back. In addition, the hype and the card itself have been terribly substandard for an event as important as this one is."
"Unless I'm wrong, and I must say that several independent folks within the business see it the same way, a failure here will make the number of companies that want to carry his Crockett Cup even fewer, especially if McMahon puts pressure on and McMahon is coming off Wrestlemania IV. The fact they may not have gotten as many companies to clear the show is nothing that can really be blamed on the company itself. That is the marketplace. If they don't sell well among the companies that do pick it up (and the one company I've got contacts with indicates it isn't selling at all) that can be blamed on the fact that either fans didn't perceive the card as strong enough and/or the hype for the card wasn't good enough."
"Nobody seems to care about the Stampede, and the hottest match in the promotion right now would be Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger, and that's what you go with on your big PPV show, whatever is the hottest at the time. I know they want to save Flair vs. Luger for later, but the long-run potential of PPV is more than important enough to sacrifice a little in short-run house income"
"Some good news for the NWA is that their TV ratings slide seems to be over and they are rebounding. The latest set of TV numbers I've got is for the week of 12/20, and the Wrestling Network has returned to the top 15 of syndicated programming with a 5.6 national rating. The rating, which peaked at a 7.9 only five months back, had fallen as low as the low 4's just before Starcade."
"I know there's been lots of talk that the Crocketts move to Dallas was canceled, however the Dallas office is preparing three new offices, one for Dusty, J.J. and Crockett and supposedly their wives are all house shopping in the Dallas area"
"A run-in took place with Flair & Arn and with Lex Luger making the save. They go 3-on-1 on Lex and hope that Windham will join them and attack Lex as well. During this time several fans jumped into the ring to attack the horseman and had to be dragged out. It ended with Lex & Barry shaking hands, so forget the notion of Barry being the Fourth Horseman. It looks like they are going to use this angle to kill time so they can figure out who really will be the Fourth Horseman because it appears they have no candidates."
"Ric Flair pinned Michael Hayes to keep the NWA title when Hayes went for a sunset flip over the top ropes, Flair sat down on him and held the ropes for leverage (solid 3 stars, which made it the only good match on the card, but the finish was the exact same finish they've used two or three times in this building over the last three months"
"Flair and Dusty were in Chicago on 11/12 for the Bulls vs. Celtics game at the Horizon which was broadcast on TBS and both did halftime interviews. But after talking how much they hated one another, it sure looked stupid when the two were sitting together, along with Jim Crockett, when they did close-ups of them in the stands. I admire their attempts to get their stars ”over” to the general public, but a Tuesday night NBA game (which is actually watched by a whole lot less folks than their own wrestling show) is hardly the Grammy Awards or the David Letterman show. Still, they are moving in the right direction, but next time, buy tickets that aren't right next to each other"
"1/16 in Philadelphia drew 7,500 for another bad card. From all the reports I'm getting, the guys appear exhausted here on more and more shows (the hard travel is catching up with them) and the matches are a lot worse. This is more important here than Titan because matches are part of the product, where in Titan they aren't."
"Flair pinned Hayes in 13:00 (they were running up against 11 p.m. in which case they'd have to pay the local workers overtime, so Flair had to work one of his shortest arena bouts of the year, even then it was slow-paced and even though Flair is never bad, it was okay at best)"
"Los Angeles is a major city and my feeling of why the NWA can't draw there is the same as why they can't draw here in Northern California. More often than not, the cards are bad (there hasn't really been a good NWA show in SF, although there have been in LA they are in the minority from everyone's viewpoint I talk with). But LA and SF are major league cities, and the promotion has to come across as major league and make the card "important" to the fans. They completely fail in that regard. Whatever one might say about the WWF's actual product, they come across on television as "major league" and the show comes off locally as a "happening" rather than a bunch of wrestlers who just happen to be in town for a night, as the NWA comes off generally. Also, card-to-card hijinx builds a loyal following and all the NWA does is put the faces over, then bring back the same losing heels on top, and then they wonder why nobody comes back."
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2021 6:45:58 GMT -5
Feb 1, 88
"I've talked to at least a dozen folks from Nassau and as a live show, it got terrible marks from everyone. But as a pay-per-view production, it was better than Starcade although the opener was inexcusable and they also owed the audience an explanation as to why the Rock & Roll Express and Steve Williams weren't there nor Mike Rotunda and Sting (Sting actually did work in a match which started before the PPV segment went on the air, but the fans paying for the show on PPV weren't aware of it and a Rotunda-Sting match was pushed on WTBS just a half hour earlier)"
"The NWA had eight no-shows and put on what everyone I talked with called a very bad card in Los Angeles on Thursday night, most of the no-shows were guys pulled from the card for financial reasons (costs of flights from Honolulu-to-Los Angeles-and then-to-Charlotte as opposed to Hawaii-to-Charlotte)
"At Nassau, the card was advertised with a 7 p.m. start, however a good percentage of tickets listed an 8 p.m. start, and the show itself started at 6:35 p.m. (when few were even there) and ended before 9 p.m., so those arriving at 8 missed most of the show."
"Last Sunday an NWA show in St. Louis started more than one hour late because the crew was late coming from its afternoon stop in Charleston, West Virginia."
"Unlike WWF fans who come to basically "see the stars," the NWA fans generally come to see action. The NWA has some of the greatest wrestlers around, but nobody can perform at any-where near peak efficiency with the kind of schedule they are on. In the long-run, cross-country double-shots on weekends are killing all the weekend cards and causing numerous complaints. New talent is needed, now more than ever"
"The "turn" that they needed the worst, that of Ric Flair to babyface (it is totally ludicrous at this point to have your lead heel as someone who is more popular than almost everyone else in the promotion despite the fact he actually plays heel superbly) can't even be done right now because of the Luger turn and the fact they don't have another heel who can carry the load on that side. At this point they should have Dusty Rhodes turn heel and feud with the Road Warriors, but of course that will never happen."
"In recent weeks the promotion has lost Terry Taylor (for no apparent reason other than the fact that apparently several folks held a vendetta against him for leaving the promotion in 1985 and decided to punish him for it two years later), Big Bubba Rogers (who they had turned into a great gimmick and had become a good worker as well); apparently the Rock & Roll Express quit this afternoon from all the reports out of New York, as they were unhappy about their push (in truth, as much as I respect their workrate and am a fan of theirs, they had been living on borrowed time for the last nine months) and the odds of Steve Williams returning are less than 50/50 for reasons that everyone who has followed the plight of the UWF can understand."
"Names like Chris Champion, Brad Armstrong and Eddie Gilbert might as well have disappeared, all of whom could be used in fresh angles. There are others looking to get out as well."
"I hate wasting the front page on things I've basically been writing every week for four months. I actually hate writing them because I am a longtime fan of the NWA. While I can't categorize myself as a WWF fan, I watch their TV show and totally respect what they've done in improving many aspects of this business. They are going to blow this business wide-open once again over the next two months and have to be congratulated for it."
"Yes, the WWF cost them millions on Thanksgiving in outmanoeuvring them for the PPV market. They didn't help them any tonight (as I write this) in running opposition to their PPV show. They don't help in blocking the NWA out from several of the major arenas in this country. And probably as important as anything, they don't help in putting the paranoia in the NWA, especially since the Bubba departure, of "who will be next" which in some ways may be partially responsible of why Dusty gives himself such a big push. He knows that Vince McMahon won't steal Dusty Rhodes."
"I had reported Starcade had done a 6.6-percent buy-rate on PPV (Survivors did just over seven percent), but in reality it did only a 3.3 percent buy-rate (20,000 of 600,000 potential homes). I had heard the 20,000 figure but assumed it was of the 300,000 cable homes cleared, not taking into account another 300,000 satellite homes which also could have picked it up."
"I don't have the exact Nassau crowd although I'll have a good indication in next week's issue, but the estimates I've gotten indicate around 7,000 fans, maybe a little less even"
"Nikita Koloff went to a 20:00 draw with Bobby Eaton to retain the NWA TV title. Four things happened in this match. At 7:30 they did a high spot. At 10:00 Bobby was posted twice and took a hiptoss on the arena floor. At 13:00 Bobby did a dropkick off the top rope. To say Nikita did nothing would be giving him more of a compliment than he deserves."
"I am not a fan of Luger's, but he should have won the Stampede. There were few cheers and lots of boos (although those there live told me they didn't think the fans were booing that Dusty won, since everyone already knew it once Luger went out, but booing because they didn't like the show overall)"
"Williams was scheduled to leave Japan on 1/20 so he could work the Bunkhouse Stampede in Nassau, however he sent word that he wasn't coming back and apparently is going to work exclusively in Japan. Word I got is he was unhappy about certain stipulations in his JCP contract and at the same time has “gone Japan-crazy” because he can make a good income just working 16 weeks a year here."
"Since I started this issue, I've been literally flooded with calls from fans who attended the Nassau show or those who watched on PPV. Now I enjoyed the show at home although I didn't go in with high hopes either, however the reaction was exceedingly negative, particularly from the live crowd. I can't express just how negative the live crowd reaction really was."
"The next time JCP does a PPV (if there is a next time, since people had been calling this Nassau show Crockett's Last Stand) they should reserve three hours on the satellite. This business of running short shows pisses fans off, even though all the matches had adequate time. PPV fans expected the entire card, and the fans live expected a show to last past 9 p.m. The ticket starting time snafu made things even worse."
"On Titan's big network extravaganzas and PPV extravaganzas, they get their hottest characters, Savage, Honkeytonk, Hogan, DiBiase, Andre, whomever out there on interviews, in fact Andre and Hogan and Hogan and DiBiase were all out twice. At Starcade, neither Cornette, Dusty nor Flair, their top talkers, talked. Instead they had Jim Garvin give the worst interview of his career with Michael Hayes silent for the first time in his life, and the other interviews were Steve Williams and Nikita Koloff, and I'm still trying to figure out what they said. This time, there were no interviews."
"The treatment of Flair is such an old subject but everyone that calls brings it up and I can't understand when these guys will wake up and realize their World title can't draw $10 at the gate anymore and the reason is because they've destroyed the credibility of the champion."
"Rock & Roll Express beat Gary Royal & Max McGyver (sub for the Midnight Express who were double-booked that night)"
"1/21 in Los Angeles drew 3,000 for thr card with eight no-shows as Sullivan pinned Hurricane Kid in 90 seconds of a tremendous squash (Sullivan just killed the poor guy), Windham pinned Samoan Tau in 2:30 (fans were already mad since Windham vs. Sullivan was scheduled and both were there, but instead worked squashes)...Besides the switch and other no-shows, an entire 6-man (Rock & Roll & Williams vs. Bubba & Midnight) was scrapped with no explanation to the fans. They come back on 2/17 and I hate to say this, but they really should cancel because the fans who attended were really mad about this show"
"No-shows in Cincinatti were Sheepherders, Rotunda and Hayes"
"Ivan Koloff & Warlord beat Rock & Roll in 15 seconds when Warlord pinned Ricky (the departure of R&R stems from this match, not sure what was supposed to happen but the end result was R&R flew with the guys to New York that night, and flew home before the show started with one side saying they were fired and them telling fans in the hotel that they quit)"
"Hayes has apparently quit as well and everyone expects to see him back with World Class"
"There are personal reasons why Nikita's matches have been so bad of late as his head isn't into them. He may be taking a sabbatical shortly. Please don't jump to the conclusion this is drug related, in fact it's nothing he has any control over"
"I really enjoyed the Windham vs. Blanchard match on TV and the way it all came down, but judging from the lack of crowd reaction I'm even beginning to wonder about the validity of booking 30 minute matches which "tell a story" to today's fans"
"They are billing the 2/6 Charlotte bout where Flair & Anderson take on Luger & Windham as the first time Flair will oppose Lex anywhere. Now it's no surprise they've forgotten Lex's Florida days, but just four days earlier, on 2/2 in Miami, they've got Flair & Blanchard vs. Dusty & Lex in the main event"
"2/14 at the Omni in Atlanta has Luger & Ole Anderson vs. Blanchard & Anderson in a cage match plus Flair vs. Sting"
"I apologize for that one and will quit using the term abortion. Actually the term abortion for a bad match is a business term just like jobber, mark, babyface and the rest. But there are a few business terms (mainly for ethnic wrestlers and ethnic fans) which are in bad taste that I don't use, so I'll add that one to the list"
Feb 8, 88
"The wrestling war, which began in November of 1983 when Titan Sports signed Hulk Hogan and Gene Okerlund away from the AWA, is for all real purposes, over. No, the business competition is still there between Titan and the other promotions, particularly JCP. And the two groups will continue to attempt to play little mind games with each other. But whether or not JCP can make a small recovery, or even a full recovery from its recent troubles, and even pop big houses again, the gap between Titan and Crockett is only going to expand"
"Titan announced its plans for pay-per-view events on March 27 (Wrestlemania IV), August 29, November 24 (Survivors Series II) and January 15, 1989 (Royal Rumble II). On the surface it sounds harmless enough, but its effect on JCP is enormous. As already mentioned here before, Crockett had planned originally to do pay-per- view shows in early April (Crockett Cup III), July (a key American Bash) and November 24 (Starcade '88). With Titan's 60 days before and 21 days after clause in its PPV contracts, added to the fact that Survivors Series was a big success and that Wrestlemania IV is going to break last year's record for the biggest grossing event in the PPV industries history, the PPV monopoly they will gain by adding these shows will eliminate any chance JCP has of breaking into the market"
"Now JCP isn't going to whither away and die because of this, but it will render any JCP competition to Titan as totally Insignificant. The apparent counter is that JCP is going to move several of its big shows (not including Starcade I'd guess) to WTBS for prime-time specials. From what I understand, and I'm not sure all negotiations are completed on this, but that JCP will schedule four prime-time specials on WTBS this year. Unlike last year's "Superbouts on the Superstation" fiasco, these will be major cards shown either live, or at least in the same form a few days delayed like Titan does with its Saturday Night Main Event's"
"In the case of the Rock & Rollers, the story is that last Saturday night, the 23rd, in Cincinnati, they were asked to do a clean job for Warlord & Ivan Koloff in 12 minutes. I guess they were pissed off about it, since they had been big deals with the promotion for years, and Ivan has been a prelim guy of late. So instead, they did the job in closer to 12 seconds when Ricky Morton basically just laid down for Warlord. Dusty Rhodes wasn't at the show that night, so they flew with the crew to New York for the Nassau card, and before the show Dusty got the word and fired the Rock & Roll Express."
"Hayes was also fired due to an incident during the middle of last week. His spot as Jimmy Garvin's tag team partner will be taken by Ron Garvin, and his booked matches against Ric Flair around the horn will be taken by Sting, who is getting his push accelerated because of Hayes' departure. It is generally expected that Hayes will wind up back with his fellow Freebirds with World Class, although he also has sent in a resume to Titan"
"The Williams story pretty much remains the same as we reported last week. Williams spent an extra week in Japan, which caused him to miss the Bunkhouse Stampede. He basically has a contract dispute with JCP over whether his Japanese income is considered part of his guaranteed yearly income from JCP or not, and probably there are other items of dispute as well. Williams has been back from Japan for a week as I write this, but disconnected his phone and as best I can find out, there has been no communication between him and the JCP office although they are hoping he'll return"
"The fourth quarter cable TV ratings came out (covering October, November and December of 1987) and wrestling didn't fare as well as it did during the third quarter. JCP's Saturday World Championship Wrestling show fell from the second highest rated program on cable television to the No. 8 slot with a 2.9 rating. The WWF's All-American Wrestling nudged it out for the first time as the highest rated wrestling show on cable with a 3.1, good for seventh place, while Prime Time Wrestling fell from No. 3 to No. 10 with a 2.9 rating. The WTBS Sunday show fell all the way from No. 10 to No. 20 with a 2.4 rating, while the AWA show on ESPN fell out of the top 20 completely (it was No, 19 during the third quarter)"
"There is an awful lot of talk that the recent firings have been because of the company's monetary problems, not due to discipline problems, at least that's what those fired are saying. Actually the story I got in the case of Hayes is that he and Crockett had agreed to terms of the contract a long time ago (a two year deal for $150,000 per year) but that Crockett had never actually signed it. Hayes put the pressure on for the contract to be signed, because he wasn't making any money with JCP without the contract, and he wound up fired for missing Cincinnati on 1/23."
"Morton & Gibson apparently were asked to do an angle where the Sheepherders shave Ricky’s head bald but refused to go along with it which may have led to their ouster as well."
"The bench press contest on 1/30 in Greensboro drew more than 10,000. Unlike Titan, they used legit weights, with all four doing 460 pounds with no problem"
"I was told the actual gate for the 1/24 show in Nassau was $60,000 which means the paid attendance was in the 5,000 range which is pretty poor for the second show in the market, especially since the first show did in excess of $150,000"
"All of the Dallas-based wrestlers have been asked by the company to move to Charlotte, however I'm still hearing that Dusty Rhodes, J.J. Dillon and Jim Crockett will be moving to Dallas during the summer. The story I get is they will keep two offices open, one in Charlotte where talent is based, the other in Dallas where the TV production will be based out of"
"Interesting that last week Dusty did an interview screaming about how this is the NWA and you don't buy a belt in the NWA (in reference to Titan's skit with DiBiase). Actually it was interesting. DiBiase offered Hogan $1 million, which I guess is the going rate for WWF champion for one year. And Steiner got the Florida belt for free, which is about what the Florida champion is worth these days"
"The Worldwide show which aired this weekend in Westpoint, MS had both the Worldwide and Jack Gregory commentary on at the same time, so the entire show sounded like total jibberish"
"No-shows were Rock & Roll (they had signs on the door saying they weren't going to be there and made an announcement in the ring when the card started saying that as well, and when the announcement was made, everyone cheered)"
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Squirrel Master
Hank Scorpio
"Then the Squirrel Master came out of left field and told me I'm his bitch!"
Posts: 6,639
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Post by Squirrel Master on Feb 20, 2021 10:19:07 GMT -5
Let me preface this by saying that my screen name on this board was for many years “UWF circa 1986”. I agree with Dave Meltzer’s assessment of of the mishandling of the UWF merger; he was right on point. UWF ring action was simply amazing prior to Jim Crockett’s purchase and the opportunity was there to present JCP/UWF as the heir apparent to the best wrestling in the USA but damn if they didn’t f*** it up stupidly!!! To be fair, WWF was strong competition with its superstars, its loyal fan base and stronghold on certain arenas and metropolitan areas. I know that if the merger was done right Crockett would have gotten plenty of new fans and solid gate $$$ from WWF fans hearing (and seeing on TV) the right buzz about JCP/UWF. Alas, egos got in the way and it all went down the toilet.
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Post by jason1980s on Feb 20, 2021 10:29:10 GMT -5
Vince really did Crockett dirty with those PPV requirements. No wonder he had to sell later in the year. I'm always surprised when a Crockett or Gagne or someone similar does the WWE DVD specials. I know they want to get their story out but there has to be some bitterness in their hearts towards Vince even though I know some will say the promotions died out not because of anything Vince did but because they couldn't adapt. No, it's that Vince was much more of a ruthless human being in his business model.
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BlackoutCreature
Grimlock
The Ultimate Popcorntunist!
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Feb 20, 2021 11:41:53 GMT -5
So if I'm reading this correct, if Michael Hayes hadn't gotten fired, there's a good chance the main event of the first Clash of the Champions would've been him vs. Ric Flair, instead of Sting. Well that certainly would have been an interesting alternate timeline.
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Post by horsemen4ever on Feb 20, 2021 17:02:30 GMT -5
I am hoping there is a Dark Side of the Ring on Magnum TA and the accident. I wonder what effects Terry Allen's accident had on Steve Simpson. How much of that was acting and how much was real.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2021 3:45:25 GMT -5
Feb 15, 88
"Stampede are still hoping for a Ric Flair vs. Owen Hart match for the spring, although the folks at JCP seem pretty inaccessible to such a proposal"
"A quick correction. In last week's issue I said the NWA show on 1/24 at the Nassau Coliseum drew a $60,000 gate--actually it was an $80,000 gate and a paid attendance of around 6,200"
"Also on an Atlanta show this weekend, Michael Hayes was on talking about the NWA saying, "It may be the major league, but their checks are minor league." It can be safely assumed Hayes won't be back with JCP anytime in the near future"
"The biggest story is that Ted Turner is now in bed with these guys and trying to help them get back on the PPV track. As we've mentioned before, JCP announced four PPV events originally for this year (Bunkhouse final, Crockett Cup, American Bash and Starcade). McMahon, now the undisputed king of wrestling and especially wrestling on PPV, then countered announcing his own show for Thanksgiving, plus a summer show and WM4 on PPV and with a 60 before and 21 day after exclusivity clause, basically cancelled out any hope JCP had of getting on with the majority of systems in order to make the potential big PPV bucks....Turner is trying to put his muscle in and help Crockett get an early July bash (probably a War Games) on PPV, although at this point plans for the Crockett Cup and Starcade on PPV have already been canned."
"After the Bash, they don't plan for another PPV until January of '89 with the Bunkhouse final (I guess the big difference between these guys and McMahon is that at least McMahon learns from his mistakes)"
"Am I imagining this or has Sting totally surpassed Lex Luger and Barry Windham as the top young babyface? I was afraid Luger would lose his "steam" like Nikita Koloff did, but believe me, in my wildest dreams I didn't think he'd lose it by early February. I figured at worse he'd be a hot headliner at least through the early summer before slipping into Nikita-level nothing stratosphere. Luger is already one of the boys and stuck in a tag team feud with Windham against Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson. Even though Sting certainly needs work on interviews, he's got an amazing rapport with the audience and can do some amazing things in the ring and I truly believe he's the kind of a guy who in about a year someone could actually build a promotion around."
"Buddy Landel tried to call in for work but they wouldn't give him the time of day. Landel didn't even last for his entire Japan tour, pulling the disappearing act after just two weeks. Last word I have on him is that he's starting back with Continental in early March"
"Ole Anderson has several dates booked in the Carolinas besides this weekend at the Omni so he's back at least on a semi-regular basis, probably to fill the slot left vacant by Nikita Koloff, who will be gone after the end of this coming weekend. Koloff will be on a six week to two month sabbatical"
"With all the bad news, I've got to mention that I think the booking is getting on the right track. The Road Warrior angle was great and I truly believe it will get over in a good way at the box office (I'm not talking sellouts everywhere, but should help deliver good houses)."
"There will be no more mention of the UWF and whatever unification matches were once in the cards won't be taking place"
"I want to comment on the Windham vs. Blanchard bout on WTBS which went 27 minutes a few weeks back. Now I liked the match. I can get into the concept of working on a body part with the guy selling the injury, etc. Both guys know how to work that style, the smashing of the chair on Windham's knee looked legit and Windham did his usual great job of selling the wounded limb. Lots of readers enjoyed the match as well. Now I'm not going to comment on the ending because that's not the issue here. The issue is, Tully had Barry in the figure four at the 22:00 mark, after working on the leg for 12 minutes, and the crowd was chanting "boring" and there was no heat. Technically, from the wrestling I grew up with, it was a good match, but the fans weren't buying it. I hope everyone takes notice of this because if it continues to happen, long matches may become as prevalent as Dusty's muscular definition."
"I can recall in Houston this past year I saw a Flair vs. Windham match, which wound up going about 30 minutes and was every bit of a four-star match. They did their usual slow start for 7 minutes before turning up the heat, but in those 7 minutes, several hundred fans went home. So what in my eyes (and in the eyes of the ringsiders who were "into" the match totally) was a great match obviously was not a great match in the eyes of the bleacher folks who were leaving during the main event. The idea that these slow-builders may not appeal to today's fans is a concept I'd rather not address, but I've seen too many examples of fans being unable to retain interest in long matches."
"Steve Williams originally doubled for Alzado in the early pilots which were filmed just before Christmas. When Williams was wrestling Ric Flair, he injured his knee landing wrong on a leap from the top ropes. He came back, heavily bandaged and limping, for a match with Tully Blanchard. In that one, Tully was supposed to crack him hard over the back with a chair, but instead hit him in the head and busted him open. Doc then had his head patched up for a match with Arn Anderson, but finally his knee blew out. Anderson then doubled for Alzado and teamed with Lex Luger against the Road Warriors. Anderson fell from the ring and jammed his shoulder on a TV camera"
Feb 22, 88
"Paul Boesch was elected to the NWA board of directors, or I guess appointed would be a more correct word to use which makes him the only non-promoter ever on the board. In the past, the board was the group that would decide on the World champion, however I'm sure that decision is basically all in Jim Crockett's hands so this may be more of a figurehead position that the NWA will use Boesch in for his name value in the Houston area."
"Dennis Condrey, who for the time being is out of wrestling, has expressed interest in returning here as a babyface to feud with Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane"
"Shane Douglas has returned and is using the sleeper hold (why isn't it the Weaverlock anymore?) and seems to be getting a mild push. Tony Schiavone is calling Douglas the 1986 rookie of the year while Jim Ross is calling him the 1987 rookie of the year"
"I can't emphasize enough just how quickly Lex Luger fizzled out as a babyface. Sometimes you look at something and make a snap judgement just by the looks of things without examining in detail. Luger is that way. You look at him and everyone tells everyone else just how over he is and how he's the future of wrestling and all that. The bottom line is, as good as his physique is, good physiques are a time a dozen these days as is blond hair. His looks are nothing special. Still, he could be a big star and will be a star of some magnitude however his rapport with the audience just isn't there. It wasn't there in Florida (remember, Florida literally died with Luger as top babyface in 1986) and it still isn't there."
"Even though Sting needs lots of work on interviews and he may not be as muscularly defined as Luger, Sting has the rapport and has totally passed Luger by. It becomes more obvious each show as the audience reacts to everything Sting does, while seemingly acts ho-hummy when Luger and Windham talk. Sting has more of the cool GQ look of today but I've got the feeling in their infinite wisdom, the NWA will keep all three at the same level (thus inevitably insuring none get over to the point they'll make a difference)."
"TV, newspaper and radio ads up until the day of the show continued to bill Rock & Roll and Michael Hayes for this card, but what the heck, Titan is still billing Billy Jack Haynes for future dates as well as he's been gone basically just as long"
"2/14 in Chicago (this was an afternoon card, the Omni was the night show) drew 5,000....Being that the Warriors are huge draws in Chicago you would think the angle would have drawn a big house, but obviously the NWA screwed itself up in Chicago by doing that Starcade show as they still haven't gotten the crowd back yet with the Warriors in a grudge. Before, they always drew a decent crowd even without the Warriors on the card"
"2/14 Omni show drew 13,000 fans for Lex & Ole vs Tully & Arn in a cage and Flair vs Sting"
Feb 29, 88
"With Titan Sports in the midst of full-scale hype for its Wrestlemania IV show on 3/27 from Atlantic City, rival Jim Crockett Promotions announced earlier this week that it would be running a competitive show head-to-head with Titan’s traditional record-breaking event. I don't have all the details as I type this, but expect to have them by the end of the issue. JCP will be running a 2½ hour special from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on 3/27, the same 2½ hour block Titan has reserved on the satellite for Wrestlemania. This time Titan will get a taste of its own medicine, as Crockett will be putting the card on national television, in the form of WTBS, for free."
"In a surprise of sorts, Kevin & Kerry Von Erich are tentatively slated to work both this card and, apparently, the Crockett Cup, which means the lines of communication are open between Crockett and Ken Mantell"
"Let me state unequivocally that there is no way WM4 won't be a success. There are too many factors in its favor, the main one being the excellence of last year's show as an overall production (forget about the quality of the main event, most fans came to see Andre's "first loss" and a bodyslam, and they got what they paid for). I don't believe JCP, even in its most overenthusiastic moments, believes it has a chance at "ruining" WM4, because it doesn't. However, JCP is going to cost Titan Serious money on 3/27, just as Titan cost JCP millions on Thanksgiving and probably a huge hunk of change on 1/24 as well."
"What will save WM4 here is, as I said, was the excellence of last year's show and the concept implanted in most fans' eyes that it's the one show during the year that they can't afford to miss, almost like wrestling's Super Bowl. I think because of that, JCP is only going to have a small affect on the pay-per-view audience, especially since almost everyone who has PPV capabilities also owns a VCR, thus fans interested in both groups will simply watch one and tape the other."
"Animal was legitimately injured on 1/29 in Pittsburgh. Warlord gave Animal a Samoan drop and either he executed it wrong, or Animal took the bump wrong, or simply there was a freak injury accident, but it smashed the bone above Animal's eye (similar to the injury Riki Choshu suffered when Akira Maeda kicked him in the face). The extent of the injury wasn't known at the time and he went to Greensboro for the 'bench press contest the next day. Originally they were going to use heavier weights before shooting the angle, but apparently they were afraid of having Animal lift more than 500 (he reportedly can do in the 580 range, while Barbarian can do 570 and Warlord can do 600+ although Hawk isn't in that league when it comes to bench press max) because of the pressure on the eye."
"A fund has been set up to help pay for the huge legal expenses of wrestler Al Blake (Vladmir Petrov) who was convicted on a cocaine trafficking charge a few months back. For more information, you can write: Allen Blake Fund, Box 611, Anoka, MN 55303. If anyone has any Vladimir Petrov memorabilia you can also write the same address"
"The Crockett Cup is set for 4/22 and 4/23 in Greensville, S.C. for the first round on the first day and in Greensboro for the remainder of the card on the second day. More details will probably be announced on TV Saturday, but the only "outside" team (non-NWA) even hinted at appearing is the Von Erichs thus far, and that's far from a definite thing."
"Missy Hyatt showed up on the 2/20 Memphis television show with protege Doug "Hit Man" Gilbert (Eddie's younger brother). Hyatt kept avoiding the subject of Eddie Gilbert, who has yet to make an appearance but obviously will be around before any of you read this. The story I get is that Eddie Gilbert was fired by JCP for missing two television tapings that nobody told him he was supposed to be at in the first place. Actually it was a minor miracle he lasted as long as he did in the NWA, since somehow he made himself as the UWF booker to be the focal point of the behind-the-scenes UWF vs. NWA feud, yet Gilbert actually has outlasted every ex-UWF wrestler in staying with JCP except for Sting, Rick Steiner and Black Bart"
"If the Mantell/Crockett deal comes to fruition, then expect a Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich match at Texas Stadium in May. The territory has picked up from doing awful to doing fair (although people suggesting it has a chance to supplant Crockett as the No. 2 group in this country are being even more ridiculous than to suggest Crockett has a chance to supplant Titan as No. 1)"
"WTBS has extended its contract with JCP through 1994. The new format for TBS has changed once again. The Saturday morning show, which lately was taped old studio matches plus one decent house show match will now become the NWA Pro show on a one week delay. The Saturday afternoon (night for you on the East) will be almost always done in studio, while the Sunday show will be done at the arena every week starting in April, either on 4/3 or 4/10 and show quality main event calibre matches."
"The Sunday show will air only three or four matches in the hour, giving them time to have decent-length matches and 20 minute main events. The Sunday show is being groomed specifically to get TV ratings, while the Saturday show is groomed mainly to build up the house shows. The syndicated ratings will now include the TBS package so The Wrestling Network, with the addition of TBS to its syndicated package, will move up to the 8.5 level—or actually just a point-and-a-half behind Titan which in theory should enable them to make substantial income through TV ad sales"
"The last word now on the World Class/NWA cooperation is that talks have gotten "real cold" so maybe nothing will come of it after all"
"TBS has agreed to do four specials like the 3/27 one each year and TBS and Ted Turner and JCP have signed a five-year deal to co-promote the PPV cards together. Latest word is JCP is trying to now now do maybe one more PPV event sometime in 1988. Originally they were going to do three more (Crockett Cup, Bash and Starcade) but Titan pretty well put a damper on those plans"
"The Fantastics will start full-time here with a big push and feud with the Midnight Express in about two weeks or so. They've got a tough road ahead of them because many fans will see them as replacements for the Rock & Roll Express and it may be tough to win those fans over. Other fans will see them as copycats so that'll be tough as well"
"As I've been saying, even though there are still problems, reports of this company's demise are exaggerated as they did $350,000 of business last weekend alone"
"2/28 at the Omni has Rhodes & Ole & Luger vs. Flair & Blanchard & Arn in a cage match. They are saying it's the first time Rhodes & Ole have ever teamed, which shows their utter disregard for one of the most famous angles in the history of the Omni six or seven years back when Ole & Dusty teamed in a cage match against The Assassins and Ole turned on Dusty"
"2/21 at the Nassau Coliseum drew 1,500 paid and 2,500 fans"
"The Varsity Club gimmick is one of the best ideas I've seen in a long time. I'm amazed just how effective Rotundo has become. It's mind-blowing how a creative gimmick can turn around a guy whose career seemed going nowhere"
"Even though just about everyone I talk with agrees that Sting has surpassed Luger as far as potential to be this group’s top young babyface, my guess is he won’t be given the chances Luger will be getting. Simply put, there is too much money invested in Luger (reportedly his contract is only seven times more lucrative than Sting's) to not try to build him into the key guy and not make him an eventual champion. Sting's contract runs out in May and those negotiations could be quite interesting"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2021 8:25:55 GMT -5
It's interesting how Dave depicts JCP's big issue at the time that the faces are just a blob, with no one standing out to be the guy and draw. This has been a problem that's plagued WWE for a long while now, really since John Cena stopped being pushed as the main guy. Guys like Punk and even Reigns to an extent weren't really depicted as THE baby face in favour of the product itself being the draw and I think that's hurt the show in the long run.
You can see as well with Drew how they've course corrected and really gotten behind him as the number one face and Reigns as the number one heel.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Feb 21, 2021 10:34:14 GMT -5
It's interesting how Dave depicts JCP's big issue at the time that the faces are just a blob, with no one standing out to be the guy and draw. This has been a problem that's plagued WWE for a long while now, really since John Cena stopped being pushed as the main guy. Guys like Punk and even Reigns to an extent weren't really depicted as THE baby face in favour of the product itself being the draw and I think that's hurt the show in the long run. You can see as well with Drew how they've course corrected and really gotten behind him as the number one face and Reigns as the number one heel. They are doing Reigns as a heel champion correctly as well. He is a badass but such a piece of garbage that you want to boo him. That was the big problem with Flair during this time, and most of the time when they want the top guy to be heel. Your champ is a wimp who can only win by DQ or cheating. It worked during the territory days when the top guy in a local area was the face. The heel national champ comes in, faces him, and either loses but keeps the title or wins unfairly. Either way the champ keeps the title but the local top guy stays strong to draw. And in that territory they can believe that the champ beats everyone elsewhere and only their guy was the actual threat. Only the newsletter/magazine readers know otherwise but they were the smarks and know the deal. But when national TV and expansion came about fans saw the WWF champ beating everyone decisively while the NWA champ looking like a loser.
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Post by horsemen4ever on Feb 21, 2021 10:37:29 GMT -5
I think one problem JCP had, is the fans wanted to cheer for Flair, they wanted him to be face, and they just wouldn't listen. Flair and Dusty may not have agreed on many times, one thing they did is wanting Flair to be heel, because Flair liked being heel and was more comfortable as a heel, and Dusty wanted to be the top babyface. So the fans get screwed there of not being listened to.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2021 6:32:31 GMT -5
Mar 7, 88
"Crockett's "Clash of the Champions" free show on WTBS which goes head-to-head will now include their own celebrity of sorts, Ken Osmond (you know, Eddie Haskell of Leave it to Beaver fame). I know he's not exactly Vanna White, and unfortunately it makes Crockett's show look like a cheap imitation. They should have avoided the celebrity game, unless they had somebody like Bob Hope or Stallone to "blow away" Titan."
"Actually it would be very difficult for Crockett not to have more viewers for his show, because of the power of WTBS and the fact that it's free, than Titan has for Wrestlemania. If this isn't the most-watched Crockett house show ever, and in fact except for the NBC specials and the Royal Rumble, the most-watched wrestling show of the modern mat era, then Crockett should be very disappointed. Even if Crockett doesn't hurt Titan one iota (and they won't hurt him much no matter what), they should at least get a six rating out of the thing which is 2.5 million homes—or translated, probably more than five million viewers."
"Unlike the two previous head-to-head shows (Survivors vs. Starcade and Bunkhouse vs. Royal Rumble), a very significant percentage of wrestling fans will actually be watching both of them so head-to-head comparisons can be made. On Thanksgiving, almost nobody had a chance to see Starcade because of pre-show maneuverings by Titan (which probably was just as well for Crockett because they came out really bad that day on a head-to-head basis). While lots more saw Crockett's bunkhouse because it had a wider PPV clearance, Titan still had easily five times as many people watching their free show on USA. This time both groups will have very substantial viewership with most fans having the option not only to choose, but also to watch both."
"Some people think Crockett is suicidal in this regard, because last year's WM3 was such an impressive production that JCP simply has no chance to offer anything on nearly that level. At the same time, if Crockett really puts on a hot show, there will be so many folks watching and if somehow his show can even compare with Titan's or be better than Titan's in a reasonable percentage of folks eyes, then he will have more than undid whatever damage he did to the viewing audience from his last two big shows. Titan is going to make millions, and they'll probably but on a good show as well."
"Crockett's houses have picked up of late (through several short-term solutions rather than addressing the real problems that need to be addressed before they can make it nationally) and a hot show could at least reverse the negative momentum"
"The latest on the Cow Palace situation is that JCP tried to book a show there and the Cow Palace agreed, until Titan told them they wouldn't book any shows in the Cow Palace if Crockett was to be given a date. The most recent word is Crockett won't be getting a date although it's not the final word. For all Titan says about JCP hot concerning them and not being competition, they sure are doing actions that speak the opposite. I don't blame them, since JCP would do the same thing in the same situation and I'm sure has in Charlotte and Greensboro, etc., however JCP's chances of being profitable in this market are slim because they don't know how to appeal to California fans to begin with (I wish I didn't have to say this but they've proven this statement over the last year) and why McMahon still would be so paranoid of competition which is a longshot to be profitable shows they are far more insecure then their public image would have you believe"
"Big Bubba Rogers is looking for independent work. Apparently he got caught in the middle of the JCP/Titan feud and became an unwitting pawn to their power games. Bubba left Crockett to work for Titan while he still had a valid JCP contract (which I believe expires in May). JCP threatened to block his jump, and I'm not sure all of what has happened other than Titan isn't going to risk legal action and won't be using Bubba, thus Bubba is in the position of not earning any money from either JCP or Titan until May."
"Stampede is still hopeful of bringing in Ric Flair for a weekend to wrestle Owen Hart, although with Stu Hart's position as WWF agent for the Titan Calgary shows, there seemingly would be several political pitfalls in the way aside from the fact Crockett wouldn't want to give up Flair on a Friday and a Saturday night."
"All the cockiness about selling out the Omni and drawing 20,000 turned out to be disappointment because the 2/28 show drew just 7,300 (not a bad crowd at all considering what the Omni has been drawing over the past years, but they got really overconfident with the two crowds of 13,000 in succession) and the gate was even lower than a crowd that size would indicate because a good percentage of the crowd was in the upper deck where seats are $5. The same thing held true the night before in Greensboro, where they may have had nearly 10,000 fans but the upper deck at $5 was more full then the good and more expensive seats. I will say this, cards of that caliber for $5 is a tremendous entertainment bargain in this day and age."
"The Jive Tones did a mini-Temptations entrance act and actually were cheered by the Omni crowd."
"Sting beat Larry Zbyszko in 7:19 via DQ when Baby Doll interfered in a so-so match. Sting grabbed the house mic and called Zbyszko "asshole" and the crowd picked up the chant for the rest of the match."
"The finale, a six-man tag that was tremendously hyped, wasn't a cage match (advertised in a cage the first week, cage never mentioned again after that) as Dusty Rhodes & Lex Luger & Ole Anderson beat Ric Flair & Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson, the Four Horseman (and let me tell you, I'm getting tired of getting asked why they are called the Four Horseman when there are three of them)"
"They return to the Omni on 3/13 and crowd should be down once again. They are running so often perhaps because they got cocky with the two houses Ole Anderson drew but more likely because Vince has WM4 booked at the Omni for closed-circuit and they don't want Titan to get a foothold in one of the few major markets they've never had any success in"
"NWA had to cancel 2/23 in Asbury Park (Windham vs. Zbyszko headliner) because of no advanced sales, like less than 100 tickets sold the day before the card"
"Lex did the last match on the first taping and was sucking wind during his interview, then they came out with Lex & Ole vs. Tully & Arn as a dark match ending with the heels DQ'd when J.J. interfered (best match on the card) and then the first match of the second hour of taping had Lex, exhausted at this point, in his third match in a row and he tried to lift a jobber and couldn't"
"Windham beat Rotundo via DQ in a title match when Steiner and Sullivan interfered and Luger made the save. The ring broke during a suplex and it took 45 minutes to repair it"
"NWA returns to Boston Gardens on 4/15. The Gardens will right now only book them one date a year which is why they haven't returned in a year"
"Flair beat Rhodes via DQ in 33:55 of their typical first time in a city match where Dusty clotheslines the ref, then pins Flair, ref crawls on his hands into the ring like he's making a three count and signals for the bell, but it's really a DQ on Dusty for the clothesline"
Mar 14, 88
"As stated before, the 3/27 Clash of the Champions vs. Wrestlemania IV isn't going to be a winner and a loser proposition. WM4 is a guaranteed success, although I'm beginning to think it will fall short of original prognostications. Clash of Champions should do well in the ratings, and we'll find out just what kind of potential Crockett has for a national heavy-hyped special."
"The latest syndicated TV ratings (for the week ending 2/7) show the expected rise of the NWA because their WTBS viewership is now counted within their syndicated network. The Wrestling Network (NWA) ranked sixth with an 8.9 national rating on 185 stations, ranking just behind The World Wrestling Federation network, fifth with an 11.4 rating on 258 stations, I think that's too close for comfort if you get my drift."
"Titan's rating would indicate its show is watched weekly in 10,078,000 homes (although if a home watches Challenge, Superstars, All American and Spotlight, it is counted four times). JCP's network reaches 7,868,000 homes weekly, but again most homes can be counted as many as five to seven times (between the three TBS shows and the various syndicated shows). The top three shows in syndication, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and Oprah Winfrey are all just a single show in each market, thus viewers are only counted once."
"NWA 4/8 Nassau Coliseum line-up is weak with Road Warriors vs. Powers of Pain street fight on top, Tully & Arn vs. Windham & Luger, Shane Douglas vs. Ivan Koloff, Lightning vs. Sheepherders, Valiant vs. Green Machine (Bugsy) in what should be memorable"
"Steve Williams has changed his mind and is looking at returning here"
"3/13 at the Omni has almost the exact same card at the 3/27 special from Greensboro"
"Dusty's interview on Saturday where he told viewers that if they didn't watch the 3/27 special he'd remember and on Christmas he'd come down their chimney and beat up their kids ranks up there with the "You suck" interview. Actually I'm sure he meant it as comedy and it didn't work, but lots of folks called this weak asking if he'd finally lost his mind. If nothing else he gave Zbyszko ammo for a great interview that followed."
"From almost all reports, Lightning Express vs. Sheepherders have been putting on the best match on the card"
Mar 21, 88
"RIC FLAIR VS. STING: 20+ minutes. Lots of near falls. Sting won't sell the suplex. Ric somehow will get caught before he can jump off the top rope. In other words, this match will be exactly as expected. I'm not complaining, it still could be the best match of either card. But do you know of anybody who is really excited about seeing this match?"
"The Fantastics have to be put over big and fast. They've got a tough road ahead of them. The Rock & Roll gimmick is burned out. Lots of fans don’t like little guys, no matter how talented they may be, especially cocky little guys. The Rock & Roll Express fans will be divided. Some will like them anyway, but some will view them as replacements so they'll get cheered, but won't be "over." "
"A title change here seems the most logical thing they could do. Even so, I'm picking a title change"
"Zbyszko's feud with Dusty went nowhere because the "angle" with the photos was destroyed when Dusty told everyone not to be concerned. If there was no reason for Dusty to worry, then why would anyone else even care about it?"
"The Crockett Cup will announce its top 10 seeds on the 3/27 special. Word I've got is that they will be: 1. Tully Blanchard & Am Anderson; 2. Dusty Rhodes & Nikita Koloff; 3. Road Warriors; 4. Midnight Express; 5. Powers or Pain; 6. Lex Luger & Barry Windham; 7. Fantastics; 8. Mike Rotundo & Rick Steiner; 9. Sting & Ron Garvin (managed by Magnum T.A.) and 10. Ivan Koloff & Dick Murdoch. What this means is that no "big-name" outside team will be entering, because the egos of the Von Erichs or Inoki would never allow them to come and not only not make it to the finals, but also be unseeded."
"With Steve Williams returning, maybe, just maybe we'll have the unification match with Ric Flair as the main event on the second night, even if the story I've heard indicates that one of the babyfaces on one of the seeded teams will "pull out of the tournament" to get the title shot"
"Al Perez and Gary Hart had a meeting with Jim Crockett on Friday and will be starting shortly with the NWA. That's important since Perez was supposed to regain the title from Kerry on 3/25 in Dallas"
"They gave Tony Suber a TV win over The Super Destroyer (probably Gary Royal) similar to the Mulkeys win before the Cup last year. This didn't get over nearly as good, however"
"Ted Turner will be starting a new network in October called TNT with lots of sports and lots of MGM movies. Apparently with his new commitment to Crockett, wrestling may switch to the new network. No word on that yet, however"
"3/12 in Baltimore drew 8,000 fans and $91,000 which is darn impressive for a Thursday night"
"With Gary Hart coming in with Al Perez, that gives this group something like six or seven managers between Hart, Sullivan, Cornette, Dillon, Jones, Baby Doll and Precious which is even more than the WWF has"
"The Fantastics debuted in Norfolk on 3/12 winning a non-title match from the Midnight Express which will air on television in about two weeks. I was told this was a candidate for this year's match of the year so we'll have to wait and see for ourselves. I heard they had a huge crowd in Norfolk as well"
"By the way, when I was listing all the NWA managers and came up with seven (with the addition of Gary Hart), I left one out—Scandor Akbar. How easy we forget"
"The commission in Maryland is also very tight about blading. This brings up an important point, however. Baltimore has been Crockett's best drawing city over the past year, and there has been no blood except once during that entire time. Now it would be stupid to even hint that the lack of blood is a major reason Baltimore is a hot NWA city, however at the same time the lack of blood obviously isn't keeping fans home either. And this is the "NWA audience" we are talking about now, not the WWF audience. Now I'm not hardcore against blood usage or blading, although I am against overuse of the blade. But clearly, it is the lure of blood that is a bigger drawing card than blood itself"
Mar 28, 88
"First off, no matter how you slice it, and Crockett's show has nothing to do with this, it appears the interest in Wrestlemania IV is way down in comparison to its three predecessors. I can recall the first WM, when every major newspaper, the large magazines and the like were all reporting on the big show. The second Wrestlemania, which was overloaded on celebrities thus not a success, still garnered quite a bit of press. Last year's, which was the most successful financially, didn't garner the overwhelming national press that the first two had, however in the Michigan/Ontario area there was tons of ink. This year, I've seen almost nothing on the show. The national media has decided to ignore the show. And I note little or no interest in the public at large, unlike the first Wrestlemania when I could recall taking the bus or going out somewhere and nobody would stop talking about it. This year, even the wrestling fans don't seem to be all that intrigued by the show."
"In the weekly syndication ratings for the week ending 2/21, the WWF network ranked in sixth place with a 9.9 rating in 245 markets, Jim Crockett's Wrestling Network fell to eighth place with a 7.9 rating in 177 markets, both of which dropped more than a point from the previous week which may or may not be significant depending on future weeks. Since these were of shows that aired mainly on 2/19, you are talking a week after the tournament announcement on Titan and I can't even recall anything special Crockett had going at this time last month."
"A note in the magazine Sports, Inc. noted that the WWF's syndicated package advertising was almost all renewed for the remainder of the year at prices ranging from $30,000 to $35,000 a 30 second slot. This means that the WWF should gross between $15.6 and $18 million in advertising revenue from its syndicated package in 1988. The last I've heard, Crockett's package hopes to gross in the $10 million range this year."
""Learning the Ropes," the show Crockett is involved with which stars Lyle Alzado as a school teacher and masked pro wrestler and will include several NWA main eventers like Ric Flair, the Road Warriors, Arn Anderson and Dusty Rhodes playing themselves, apparently did well at the NATPE convention. The syndicators have already ordered 52 shows, which I presume is two seasons worth. The show will start in September, with Crockett hoping to sell it as a package deal to stations which already carry his programming."
"With one week to go, do you realize the NWA has only announced the top four matches for its TBS special?"
"They drew a poor $15,000 house in Reno on 3/15 in their debut so don't expect a return date there"
"Wrestlers are pretty excited over the new TBS Sunday show which debuts on 4/3 because they will be getting bonuses for appearing. The participants in the main event split a $7,500 bonus (in a singles bout that's $3,750 each which is a huge payoff for a single match, tag would be $1,800 each which still is huge), those in the semi-main split $2,500. Each show, called "NWA Main Event," will have three matches, few interviews, the bouts will have length to them, etc. and the show will become the new "C" show of the package running a week later in syndication replacing the CWF and Power Pro shows which will be dropped in April. I guess the bonuses in theory will lessen complaints if the heels are asked to do jobs on television, if in fact, we'll see jobs. I expect good action matches with mainly DQ finishes"
"NWA is planning a big Bash with Flair vs. Luger in July on Pay-per-view, but that's within the 60 day before period of Titan's 8/29 PPV show. Ted Turner is supposed to help Crockett clear markets. Will be interesting and you know Titan is going to run a free show on USA the same time"
"Crockett had the New Haven Coliseum booked in May, but the Coliseum backed out, and you can probably guess why"
"4/16 has Flair vs. Sting in a cage which makes five straight Cincinatti cards with the same match on top"
"This weekend's TV is planned as being hot besides the Sunday special. Fantastics vs. Midnight match from Norfolk which went 37 minutes is the entire NWA Pro show and looked on TBS like a heated match. Fantastics are working exceedingly hard at getting over. I'd rather watch guys like that who bust their ass and give you action than more talented guys on ego trips that don't put out."
"Al Perez and Gary Hart are in to feud with Dusty which doesn’t have a prayer. Perez isn't good enough to carry Dusty—few are. Besides Perez should be a babyface since he's got almost as much color as Casper the Friendly Ghost"
"Dusty was disappointed in the Zbyszko thing not getting over (hey, he destroyed it by killing the dirty picture angle)"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2021 15:53:12 GMT -5
omg, just realized this thread was an Observer thread. "He knows that Vince McMahon won't steal Dusty Rhodes." Huh. (IIRC, Dusty was basically given the boot so he didn't steal him per se. But.......heh, still....)
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Post by James Fabiano on Feb 22, 2021 18:15:34 GMT -5
TNT? Wonder if wrestling would fit on ot.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2021 6:19:55 GMT -5
Apr 4, 88"Jim Crockett kicked Vince McMahon's ass Sunday afternoon, and on the single least likely day of the year for that to happen. Of course we won't have anything resembling economic figures, and McMahon did make more money of course which some would say is the bottom line." "Overall, and these are preliminary figures but I've been making calls to cable companies and hearing from fans at arenas—Wrestlemania was down about 40 to 45 percent in interest from last year. The pay-per-view buy rate appears to be around six percent, or roughly half of the 12 percent than Titan had predicted and well off the 10.3 percent of last year's show....The truth is, Crockett hurt McMahon with his free show tons more than I had anticipated, and tons more than McMahon hurt Crockett on January 24th (although still probably less than McMahon hurt Crockett on Thanksgiving)" "There were flaws to be sure. There were far too many commercials early on. In fact, of the first 90 minutes of the special, just 30 minutes were wrestling. That was to make up for them going 45 straight minutes in the Ric Flair vs. Sting match without any commercial interruptions, and in hindsight, I really appreciated it" "Wrestlemania on the other hand made Starcade '87 look like Starcade '85. Really, that's even too nice. I don't want to fault individuals, but the general appraisal was that everyone on the JCP side gave not only a little extra, but a lot extra, while the Titan side figured that since it was Wrestlemania, everything would fit neatly into place since Vince is a genius and everyone else can coast along." "The lack of success of Wrestlemania was at least in part because Hogan wasn't the featured attraction, but was made "one of the boys." One cable TV operator I spoke with today termed the lack of success on PPV due to "that idiot McMahon devaluing his only attraction." " "Clash Of The Champions drew just 6,000 fans to the Greensboro Coliseum (since it was being shown live on free television)" "The Midnight Express retained the U.S. tag belts beating The Fantastics via DQ in 10:15 of what is known in the trade as a classic Memphis brawl....****1/4 (Four-and-a-half for the action in the match, minus one-half for the overused finish, plus one-quarter for the post-match)" "Dusty, with face paint wearing a black T-shirt looks like a dead ringer for Dump Matsumoto, except Dump is better looking" "For a guy who had just decked Magnum the day before, Blanchard didn't get that much of a reaction. Seems all the real heat is on J.J." "Luger was wearing new tights which "bled” on the screen so it made him look radioactive." "It was said over-and-over again that in the case of a time limit draw, that three judges would decide the winner. Well, we had five guys at the judging table (four guys and one girl to be exact) but two of them didn't vote (Ken Osmond of Leave it to Beaver Fame and Jason Hervey of ABC's "Wonder Years"). So the judges were Patty Mullen, the Penthouse Pet of the year, who was on TV the day before in Flair's arms and of course voted for Flair. Gary Juster, the NWA promoter in most of its most successful cities in the non-original territory then got to be a babyface and vote for Sting. Sandy Scott then ruled it a draw. It made the whole judging thing needless and stupid as nothing resulted from it. By the way, Lyle Alzado was a no-show as judge" "After the first match there was an ad on TBS for the WWF 900 number advertising play-by-play for Wrestlemania which was hilarious that Titan could get an ad on during Crockett's opposition special." "Crockett has been in heavy negotiations over the past 10 days with Ken Mantell of World Class. I've heard several reports, some conflicting about it. I know Crockett was going in with the idea of taking over World Class (not buying it but a takeover similar to Florida and Central States) which would give him the valuable Ch. 11 time slot on Saturday nights in Dallas which is the highest rated pro wrestling show in any of the top 20 markets in the United States. To complete the deal would require approval of Fritz Von Erich who still controls majority interest in the World Class promotion, so if the deal were completed, Kevin & Kerry would be guaranteed a job and a push with the NWA, although since Kevin & Kerry don't want to travel, the deal would be that they would only work shows in the area, a few TV tapings and maybe St. Louis where both they and their father were good draws in the past." "The bottom line here in this Crockett/World Class deal is that even though Michael Hayes and Ken Mantell are probably doing the most creative and best job of booking right now of anyone in the business, their business just isn't turning around and perhaps the economic factor, which is out of their hands, may not allow the thing to turn around. I don't expect a deal to be made now, not at least until May so Mantell and Hayes give themselves a chance to see if they can get the area going and promote a lucrative Texas stadium show on their own" "When I first heard about this angle with Magnum I thought it was great because you have to figure Magnum wants to be involved in the worst way and this gives him a purpose. But still the idea of beating up a cripple, which unfortunately is the reality of the situation, and the way that part of the angle worked, was truly pathetic. The angle will draw of course and it will allow Dusty (now managed by Magnum) to push himself that much harder as the top star in the promotion and work with Tully again. Well, if it's possible to put heat on those two against each other, this will do it, but I'm not sure how possible it is anymore considering Tully's lack of reaction the next night." "What will end up happening here is that Dusty will be suspended for 120 days on television this Saturday (which takes us through the entire month of July—do I dare smell Flair vs. Midnight Rider matches at the Bash). He will re-appear in mask and bodysuit as the Midnight Rider (at least we don't have to look at as much of him) managed by Magnum T.A. Dusty will be stripped of the U.S. title which will be put up in a tournament on 5/13 in Houston." "I’ll have national numbers next week but in Atlanta the TBS special drew an overall rating of 11.7 and the Flair vs. Sting match upped the ratings to 14.5. Now the national numbers aren’t going to be anywhere near that high, but a national five rating doesn’t seem out of reach at all. The special beat the NCAA basketball tournament on the networks going on at the same time in the Atlanta market" "At one point there were plans for some Stampede wrestlers to work the Crockett Cup as well but political pressure put an end to that one. So it probably was no coincidence that it was just outside Greensboro where Owen Hart did the submission job for Hercules in the dark match"
Apr 11, 88 "We had 532 responses between letters and phone calls and the results were stunning. Of those, 504 (94.7 percent) enjoyed Clash of the Champions the most. Only 20 (3.8 percent) enjoyed Wrestlemania more than Clash of the Champions, while eight (1.5 percent) enjoyed both shows about the same." "Sting's popularity is almost an explained phenomenon. Up until just a few months ago, he never had any kind of a national push. He's probably never scored a clean pinfall on any major star. He’s never even won a singles title. While he's very good in the ring considering his experience, he's far from the most polished performer in the NWA. And his interviews leave much to be desired. Call it charisma, rapport with the fans or what have you." "The thing is, there really aren't a lot of options open to the NWA in pushing Sting and keeping his momentum going. He's already worked four straight months with Flair, ironically getting hotter by the month even though the majority of cases he put Flair over. There is no other singles heel in the promotion he can have a meaningful feud with. With Nikita Koloff getting the title shot at the Crockett Cup and Dusty Rhodes, as the Midnight Rider, fixing once again to be the focal point of the entire promotion, it looks like the NWA will fail to take advantage of something they really lucked into. But Sting got over big with less of a push than any major star in the business, so he'll probably retain much of his popularity as just one of five contenders to the No. 2 babyface position" "Clash of the Champions drew an overall 5.8 rating/12.6 share, which means it was viewed in an average quarter hour in 2,561,000 homes. The rating isn't as high as Titan's Royal Rumble on USA in January, although the share (percentage of homes watching television that was watching the show) was slightly higher because far less people are watching TV on Sunday afternoons as compared with prime time Sunday night. However, an interesting phenomenon of Clash is that the audience increased in every successive quarter hour, which is unusual for any 2½ hour show and especially for wrestling, which often loses ground in these types of events." "The Ric Flair vs. Sting match had a 7.1 rating/15 share with 3,138,000 homes watching (almost exactly the same audience of the Royal Rumble), while the last 15 minutes of that match had 3,447,000 homes watching, which made it the most watched wrestling slot on WTBS and ever for the NWA, and probably the most watched wrestling slot ever on cable television as well" "The judging of the main event. Everything about this was botched up. First off, it was never explained whether or not the title could change hands via a judges decision. In fact, I'm still not clear on that. Second, having one judge not only as a Penthouse Pet but in the arms of one of the competitors on an interview the day before the event ranks right up there with the Fritz Von Erich interview claiming Lance wasn't a relative for stupidity and insulting the audience. Third, after being promised there would be a winner, they had a draw. Fourth, it was never made clear by the commentators that ring announcer Tom Miller had screwed up by indicating that Ken Osmond and Jason Hervey were judges, which in fact, they weren't; they were just celebrities sitting at the judging table." "Not only is Steve Williams not the UWF champion, but he's not even a former UWF champion. It's like Crockett and Dusty botched up and destroyed an entire promotion, so in typical wrestling fashion, that promotion and that title never existed in the first place. And we all used to criticize McMahon for ignoring wrestling history. And that's not all. Also forgotten is Steve Williams' heel turn before he quit the promotion and his feud with Barry Windham. Well, if I was them, I'd probably like to pretend all that didn't take place either." "Next thing you know we will see Bobby Ewing in the shower, World Class will be taken over and all the angles will pick up where they left off in May with Sting as a heel teaming with Rick Steiner, The Freebirds together, Luger as a Horseman, and Dusty will be telling us the entire last season was a dream" "The only numbers the public heard from JCP were on this past Saturday's TBS show, when David Crockett said 2½ million homes (obviously Frances read him the story of Pinnocchio before they went on the air because he told the truth) and Flair later said 5 million homes. The message is simple. Unless JCP wishes to remain ignored by the media, they have to lie, and lie big, just like Titan does. And I don't blame Titan one bit—until the media calls them on their lie, they might as well continue to spout it" "The ultimate embarrassment to Crockett was that CNN, a news station owned by Ted Turner, gave five minutes of coverage to Wrestlemania on their evening newscast while ignoring Clash" "Do you think Jim Crockett would liked to have promoted a show which grossed $16 million that was an artistic failure? Damn right he would have. Do you think Vince McMahon would have rather had a great show which sabotaged his opposition even though he wouldn't make as much money? I wouldn't be surprised at all if he would have as well" "WORST JOB OF ANALYSIS: That one goes to me for the article where I gave all the reasons Clash of the Champions wouldn't hurt Wrestlemania. I also said Wrestlemania would gross $25 million this year. My only solace is the geniuses in Titan were even farther off base than I was. And at least I knew that in today's wrestling scene the fans for the most part care only about the personalities and belts don't mean diddly-squat" "Rogers & Fulton worked well beyond the call of duty. No wonder nobody remembers the Rock & Roll Express anymore" "here is no doubt that Crockett Promotions was the big winner on Super Sunday. The momentum clearly has been turned around. They have proven that when they present something right and have quality match-ups, that they can provide a show that Titan's glitz can't match. They are not going to surpass Titan as No. 1. And it really doesn't matter. JCP can be an enormously successful company regardless of whether Titan is succeeding or failing at that particular time." "The enthusiasm from the crowd, both in the Atlanta studio and in Spartanburg for the TV shows that aired this weekend showed that the Clash has breathed new life not only into the wrestlers, but into the NWA's fans. But this Saturday night, I notice that Ric Flair and Sting are headlining matches in both Baltimore and Philadelphia the same day. In other words, they’ll work a rushed match in one spot, hurry to the other, exhausted and try and do it again. This almost always results in two bad shows. As long as the NWA continues to put themselves in a position where their live shows are below par, they will never reach their potential." "McMahon started a fight on Thanksgiving and continued on January 24th that ended up costing him more than he cost the opposition. They put Crockett in the position of retaliating, and in that position which Crockett never would have dared try on his own if McMahon hadn't started the sabotage, he ruined McMahon's biggest show of the year" "Still, the same problems they've had for the last year are still there. We are back to the Dusty Rhodes show, every babyface spends half his interview talking about Dusty and every heel spends his entire interview talking about Dusty. This is what got them into trouble last year, and just when they taste success (much of which was luck because it was nothing JCP did that got Sting over, and now that he is, they are going back to Dusty on top again) they go back to doing business the only way they know how." "Titan destroyed JCP on Thanksgiving, costing the show somewhere between $2.25 and $2.5 million by keeping them off PPV and running opposition. That was a good business move. On January 24th they ran a free show opposite Crockett's Bunkhouse Stampede. That was purely attempted sabotage. What Crockett did was retaliation. It cost Wrestlemania several million dollars, showed that Crockett has a cable audience that isn't all that much smaller than Titan’s, and head-to-head, exposed the difference in the product that Crockett had been unable to show on either Thanksgiving or January 24th." "As most of you know, the most embarrassing moment of last Sunday belonged to Crockett when the Wrestlemania ad ran during his special. Apparently Titan bought five ads under a bogus company name to air during the Crockett special but four of the five were caught but one slipped through." "The Dusty Rhodes suspension has been postponed and won't be announced until this weekend's television and won't go into effect until 4/16 which is to allow Rhodes to wrestle in the Boston Gardens on 4/15" "It will definitely by Ric Flair vs. Nikita Koloff as the main event for the second night of the Crockett Cup. Even though Sting would be the logical choice since he's the hottest singles guy, or even Lex Luger or Steve Williams would be hot since it would be their first shot (and even Windham at least you would be guaranteed a super match) but Dusty is giving Nikita the shot, probably for admirable reasons but none of them have to do with what makes sense for the business"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2021 4:52:01 GMT -5
Apr 18, 88
"The third annual Crockett Cup will be taking place on 4/22 and 4/23 in Greenville, SC and Greensboro respectively and it's certainly the least talked about Cup of the three. Although the Crocketts were projecting a sellout in Greensboro which would be a $307,000 gate and advance sales have been very good, the impression I've got is it's simply too fast to run a big show coming off a big show (even though 3/27 didn't draw a big house in Greensboro since it really was a TV special rather than a big show, it was hyped as a major card and it's hard to get the audience "up" so quickly after an interest peak)"
"What's the best way to build an audience for a new show? How about by pre-empting the thing four weeks in a row after its debut? That's the deal with the NWA Main Event show which aired on Saturday at 11 a.m. this week (and will for the next few weeks because of Atlanta Braves baseball and other TBS specials) so just about nobody saw it."
"Baby Doll was let go and Larry Zbyszko is for the time being managed by Gary Hart"
"We were all waiting for Nelson Royal to offer us a cup of coffee at the campfire having to watch the Midnight Rider video a half dozen times this weekend"
"Nikita looks to weigh a legit 230-235 as he looks like he hasn't touched a weight since he's left"
"4/9 in Baltimore drew another $101,000 gate with Flair vs. Sting on top"
Apr 25, 88
"The NWA is in grave danger of losing the Nassau Coliseum as Coliseum officials now want to go back to the WWF (which pulled out when the building started booking Crockett shows). I'm told the proposed NWA date on 6/24 is in grave jeopardy and that the NWA is looking at promoting shows in the New York area, if they are kicked out, at the Westchester County Center, which, while more easy accessible to most of New York City than the Coliseum, won't draw well because it has the connotation of being a minor league arena"
"The NWA returned to Boston on 4/15 for its annual show at the Boston Gardens drew just 5,000 fans....When the card ended, the scoreboard message said, "We hope you enjoyed tonight's WWF event." "
"This week's NWA main event matches that all of us on the West Coast slept through (since it airs 8:05 a.m. here) saw Santana & Kendall Windham beat Sheepherders via DQ when Johnny Ace got caught interfering and it was the TV beginning for the Ace/Sheepherders split, Nikita pinned Conway in a terrible match and the main event went to a TV time limit draw with Anderson & Blanchard going against Windham & Williams...Somehow I thought the main event concept would deliver better matches than that line-up"
"Early favorites for the U.S. title tournament on 5/13 in Houston have to be Perez or Blanchard, since they seem to be giving Perez a push, however Blanchard always seems to get a belt"
"In case any of you missed any of the Crockett shows this past weekend, you missed absolutely nothing. The TV is back to its Fall '87 depths with nothing but commentary and interviews talking about nothing but the Midlife Rider and his alter ego. Dusty Rhodes."
"Considering it is a week before one of the promotions biggest events of the year (Crockett Cup), you would think that would be the priority, but it was barely acknowledged, with no first round pairings (of course, I'm sure if they listed the first round it would scare people away from Greenville), no listing of teams, basically a throwaway announcement of the Flair vs. Nikita NWA title match (which is a throwaway event since nobody in the world believes Nikita has a chance) and one of the most pathetic looking skits I've ever seen involving J.J. and Jim Crockett"
"It appears whatever momentum may have been gained from 3/27 is just about completely down the tubes. I truly believe part of the success of the show was due to Dusty playing a minor role in comparison with the younger babyfaces (Sting, Windham, Luger and Fantastics). I'm not trying to say Dusty should retire like a lot of people have been saying, but he shouldn't be the top star. His role should be similar to the way they used Jimmy Valiant for so many years. Valiant had a following and probably sold tickets, and he was used low or middle of cards in short, bloody matches against guys managed by Paul Jones but never was put in with the top calibre heels (well, he had a short feud with Tully but that was probably punishment for Tully not having mentioned Dusty's name enough on interviews)"
"Last week's show in Philadelphia actually drew 6,512 paid and $96,412, which considering Baltimore did more than $100,000 the same night is pretty impressive"
"The gimmick match at Texas Stadium will be billed as something along the lines of "The Triple Tower of Doom." It will be three rings, put on top of one another with a cage around them with matches going on in all rings simultaneously. Somehow there is going to be a hole in the top two rings and a fireman's pole which allows wrestlers to slide down into the other rings if they want to. I only have sketchy details so it's all confusing to me. What I do know is that Dusty Rhodes is furious, because apparently this was his idea for his big gimmick (ala the War Games of '87) for the Bash and big fall shows that he was going to unveil at the July PPV event and Michael Hayes has beat him to the punch"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2021 5:09:37 GMT -5
May 2, 88
"Former long-time Atlanta promoter Paul Jones, whose wrestling career dates back to the days of Strangler Lewis, passed away on Sunday, 4/17 at the age of 86. Sadly, when this was announced at Jerry Blackwell's TV taping in Marietta that evening, some fans cheered because they thought the Paul Jones they were referring to was the NWA manager of the same wrestling name"
"The biggest story is the Barry Windham turn on Lex Luger on 4/20 in Jacksonville, FL during a WTBS taping. Windham & Luger were defending the NWA tag belts against Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson when they posted Luger and he juiced (for the first time in seven months). When Windham tried to make the tag to Luger, he wasn't there on two occasions and J.J. Dillon egged Windham on and finally lariated Luger and Anderson pinned Luger (oh my god, Luger and Brody did jobs during the same week—next thing you know the Road Warriors will lose clean)"
"Windham left for the heel dressing room and the Midlife Rider went into the dressing room after him. Naturally he was jumped by 72 heels, who unmasked him before a few of the babyfaces managed to do a save before we could see the Rider's face and the show went off the air with Windham in the limo holding the Rider's mask. I haven't seen this myself, but from every account, the thing was tremendous, especially when one considers that it obviously was a spur of the moment decision since they had cards set up around the country with Barry & Lex vs. Flair & Arn Anderson or Flair & Tully Blanchard on top throughout the month of May"
"Which leads us to the Crockett Cup—of which there are a lot of negative things I could and should say. The event, particularly the first night, came off totally disorganized. However, as with the two previous Cup's, the wrestling itself was first rate and the second night in Greensboro was an excellent show by any standards, except perhaps Jim Crockett's since the Coliseum for the finals had, in a generous estimate, maybe 8,500 fans in the 16,000 seat building. The upper deck was almost as vacant as a Verne Gagne brain wave. The opening round in Greenville drew a near full house, perhaps 4,500 fans in the 5,000 seat Memorial Coliseum paying $53,000. But, besides the action itself, the other good thing that must be said is that the right team won."
"Before the tournament started, Tony Schiavone informed the crowd that Barry Windham had pulled out of the tournament and that Lex Luger was going to go on and pick a partner, which we immediately assumed would be the Midlife Rider and figured it was a lock they were going all the way. No explanation was made of Barry's actions nor any mention of what happened in Jacksonville two nights earlier. "
"The program listed 23 teams and a certain set of bracketing, but we realized quickly that there was no way to keep track of this and that the bracketing had very little resemblance to what was going to take place"
"To tell you what kind of a night it started out to be, Kendall Windham & The Italian Stallion came out first, along with referee Teddy Long and The Terminator (Marc Laurinidas). Terminator's partner was scheduled to be The Green Bugsy Machine who was luckily absent, thereby improving the team. After much discussion and confusion in the ring, the ref ruled that Windham & Stallion were winners via forfeit since Bugsy failed to make it to the building on time. It was probably because Bugsy saw the tickets, which listed an 8 p.m. start (although all TV publicity did say 7 p.m. and the building was pretty much packed when the show started at 7). Bugsy was actually in the building by this time but you know those NWA regulations, the referees decision is final and Kendall & Stallion were on the road to $1 million."
"Since Valiant has pretty well been banned from television and relegated to "C" team duty in towns few people know even exist, he hasn't been able to kiss Schiavone in a while. He made up for lost time, and Schiavone was so stunned he took the best bump of the match"
"At this point, all the way from Mexico were to come the famed Twin Devils, presumably of Los Angeles wrestling fame. Instead we had Curtis Thompson & Gene Ligon in red outfits, identical to the Cruel Connection's outfits (except those were green) that we were to see later in the show. The program said their foes would be the New New Breed, however the theme song for the Lightning Express started playing. Almost the whole song played, with no sign of Brad & Tim. We waited patiently for several minutes until "Fight For the Right to Party” by the Beasty Boys started playing and the crowd popped pretty big for Chris Champion and disinterested brother Mark Starr"
"It was time for the Japanese team to arrive, and looking very Japanese on this night was Johnny Ace, who as far as everyone in the crowd knew was still the Sheepherders' flag boy, and John Savage. The irony is that Ace is the younger brother of Road Warrior Animal, while Savage is the younger brother of hated rival Konga the Barbarian. The Lightning Express music played again and Brad & Tim came out and went 6:43 before Brad pinned Savage after the double-team legdrop."
"The Sheepherders, with Rip Morgan at their side (with no explanation to the crowd as to why) downed the Cruel Connection (Gary Royal & George South) in 7:20. Most of the fans seemed to know the fat one was Royal since his name was being chanted and yelled. A few picked up the USA chant, however the best part was when the chant of "Parts Unknown, Parts Unknown" came for the Cruel Duo"
"Larry Zbyszko & Al Perez downed Ricky Santana & Joe Cruze in 4:57. Cruze was a sub for Shane Douglas who quit the promotion earlier in the week"
"According to our program, the first round was now history and it was time for the Prince of Darkness Death match, or intermission, both of which contained approximately the same level of activity. But wait, out trots Steve Williams & Ron Simmons to take on Rick "The Dog-Faced Gremlin" Steiner & Mike "Preppie Murderer" Rotunda. This was supposed to be the last match of the second round since each-of these teams received byes (but wait. Doc & Simmons weren't seeded so why do they have a bye?)"
"The Sullivan vs. Jimmy Garvin Prince of Darkness match lasted 7:20 of complete comedy. There was no action at all as they kept walking past each other before finally Garvin cradled Kevin. Those of you who enjoy Kimala vs. George Steele would love this one"
"But before round two starts, Tony has another announcement to make, the one we all knew was coming, poor Ronnie was taken to the hospital and now Sting has nobody to team with. The place cheered like mad when they announced Ronnie was injured, which was the first surprising reaction of the weekend. Well, the quick-thinking Jim Crockett Jr. ruled that since Garvin was in the hospital, Sting could continue if he'd pick a partner. And Geez, Lex Luger is looking for a partner and put one-and-one together and you got an announcement that made me put my hands over my ears the shrieks were so deafening"
"Sting & Luger downed Murdoch & Koloff in 9:41. Major heat throughout. Sting & Luger are so over it isn't funny. Lex was so elated out of his mind he threw a dropkick on Ivan (not a good one, but at least he tried)....Lex was in for 20 seconds total"
"According to the program, it was time for the Midnight Express to face the New New Breed, but for some unexplained reason the New New Breed wound up facing the Powers of Pain in the longest 8:04 of the tournament"
"According to the program, it was time for Lightning Express against Powers of Pain, but since we just saw the Powers, maybe it would be the Midnight Express, which on paper is a hot match. But instead, the Sheepherders show up"
"The program now said it was time for The Fantastics to wrestle Perez & Zbyszko, and by sheer coincidence, that's who came out"
"Finally it was time for the final match of the evening and out comes Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express, presumably to wrestle Kevin Sullivan's Varsity Club since these were the only two teams still alive that hadn't had second round matches. But wait, here comes Rip Morgan and the Sheepherders, who already won their second round match. There is no explaining this."
"To cap off the evening, Tony Schiavone announces that the eight remaining teams will wrestle the final three rounds tomorrow night in Greensboro, proceeds to announce the teams still alive (there are seven of them), and then after the announcement mentions about the "final eight teams" in Greensboro"
"Midway through the card Ric Flair came out to do an interview with Schiavone telling us how great Jim Crockett, the NWA and the tournament were and the winner of Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Most Hated Wrestler Award got a standing ovation and more cheers than anyone on the card save for Sting & Luger."
"Before getting to Greensboro, we make a quick detour to Ricky Steamboat's Gym in Charlotte. Taking my secret guise as a wrestling mark, myself and three other out-of-towners were there to purchase T-shirts and the like for various friends whose ideas of a neato gift are T-shirts of either WWF wrestlers or out-of-town gyms and I figured this way I could kill two birds with one stone. However, the microcephalic guy at the desk refuses to sell me or any of my friends any merchandise. At first I thought he was kidding, but he explained he already had logged everything and besides, look at the clock, it's 5:01 p.m. and the gym is closed....But no, even after telling him I came all the way from California simply to buy T-shirts he wouldn't budge"
"Now I may be sarcastic, but I love the Crockett Cup. I get to meet fans from all over the country and see great matches and hang out with friends all at the same weekend. But those Crockett Cup T-shirts are hideous, folks. After looking at the souvenir stand in Greensboro, I realized we should have DDT'd that guy working the desk at Steamboat's on a nautilus machine or something"
"Before the card starts, ring announcer Tom Miller has some important announcements. Actually several of the crowd has heard the buzzing that Barry turned heel and is now a Horseman, but since the segment on TBS didn't actually air until everyone left their home for the Coliseum, it was all second hand hearsay for most of them. Tom first tells everyone about the terrible injury that has befallen Ron Garvin. And just like last night, everybody cheers, maybe twice as loud here. Then the announcement about Barry withdrawing from the tournament and that the newest member of the Four Horseman is Barry Windham. People are jumping up and down and hugging each other. This is sick. Fans are chanting for the Horseman. Don't they boo heels anywhere anymore?"
"Then comes the part about Lex & Sting as a team and it's those eardrum shattering shrieks again of all the women who packed the place. I sure don't miss WWF cards back home"
"The Fantastics are opening with The Varsity Club, which ironically makes sense in the original bracketing"
"Having the dubious distinction of following this exceptional action were the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette against the handicap tag team named Sting (with Lex Luger sweating profusely in the corner yelling "come on Stinger")....Lex was in 31 seconds this time"
"I should point out that when The Fantastics won the opener, it was a lock that Sting & Luger were going all the way. There was no way Sting & Luger were losing to Midnight, so with Fantastics in the final four, and Tully & Arn getting a bye into the semifinals, that meant the Road Warriors who were the only other possible winning duo, had to get eliminated by the Powers of Pain. Which is precisely what happened"
"Finish saw Animal accidentally clothesline ref Randy Anderson out of the ring. In runs Teddy "Iceman" Long who counts the pin as Animal pins Barbarian after Konga missed the head-butt off the top rope and Animal gave him a solid clothesline. But wait—Randy Anderson is crawling back in the ring and he tells Teddy that Animal clotheslined him earlier and is DQ'd. THEY DID THAT FINISH AGAIN!!! In all fairness to Dusty, I'd bet 70% of the fans fell for it, but you know this has to piss fans off to no end—witness the empty upper deck. They just did the finish last month in the Fantastics-Midnight match in this same half-empty building"
"It's time for the Midlife Rider show, starring the greatest wrestling legend in his own mind of all-time, the Midlife Rider. J.J. Dillon cut his head off and got clobbered with the cowbell five or six times in the 4:15 massacre before getting pinned."
"Sting & Luger downed Powers of Pain in 6:50....Lex was in for a full minute this time"
"What can you say about Nikita Koloff that hasn't been said? He can't wrestle. He's not over very big. NOBODY cared about this match. He's not a drawing card. There's a joke among certain wrestlers of certain federations (none of whom work here) that whenever J.J. goes to kiss Dusty's ass late in the afternoon for the fourth or fifth time that day, he can't do it. Nikita's feet are in the way. Ric Flair carried this bum for 30:08 and the fans were into it even though it was a collection of all the same predictable spots."
"Time for the finals with the new NWA tag champs Tully & Arn against the top contenders for the World's handicap titles, Luger & Stinger. Now sit down. Luger did a great dropkick on Anderson to open the match. Even the fans cheering the Horseman had to clap for that one. It was past 11 p.m. and these fans had seen basically one great match after another yet the heat was the hottest for this match"
"So why the half house for the finals? Flair's match meant nothing. This $1 million b.s. isn't believed by anyone but the densest marks and unless you have a strong tournament and the fans know who is in it, tournaments aren't a big draw. This whole Midlife Rider bit has been a flop. They spent too much valuable TV time getting a guy who should be a legend already over and not pushing the guys who theoretically need time to get over."
"After three years, without one sellout to their credit, Crockett has to re-evaulate this tournament. First off, limiting the thing to 16 teams would be a benefit. You could have eight matches plus a World title match that means something on the first night, if you announce the opening round pairings and have some "feud" matches in the first round. Instead, they never announced half the teams and gave out this b.s. about Mexico and Japan which nobody bought, then had the audacity to say the Japanese team missed their flight."
"The surprise Windham turn is probably because houses have been unimpressive of late. 4/16 in Chicago drew $42,000 (around 3,500) for Flair vs. Sting and Road Warriors vs. Powers of Pain. Charlotte on 4/17 drew what one fan called "one of the smallest crowds in years" while the 4/24 Omni card drew just 1,400 for an excellent show"
"Flair & Blanchard beat Sting & Luger in 19:20 of a great match with all four working hard. Luger’s chest bled from a Flair chop and he lost his temper and tagged out pouting"
"4/9 in Baltimore drew 9,000"
"4/19 in Miami drew 4,000 (misplaced results but I do recall Flair vs. Sting as main event)"
"The pay-per-view card in July is tentatively on July 10th. My guess is they are going with Flair vs. Luger on top since I’d been led to believe that was the PPV match-up all along"
"Whatever positive Crockett gained from the 3/27 has already been squandered by failing to realize why the show was successful in the first place, and building everything around the one person who was downplayed at Clash which was a prime reason Clash was the success it was."
"McMahon is like a sly politician, who has the ability to make even his failures seem like successes because he tells everyone they were successes so much and so often that most fans forget, as one reader said, that the emperor really has no clothes. Crockett, on the other hand, has a basically excellent stable of wrestlers and performers, and because of that, often stumbles into something hot, but generally fails to take advantage of it, follow through correctly with it, and often I get the impression the Crockett hierarchy doesn't even realize why they have their occasional successes"
May 9, 88
"Crockett promotions made a major retreat this past week in giving up any claim to the New York market, the largest and most important wrestling and media market in the country. As we reported a few weeks back, officials at the Nassau Coliseum not only seemed ready, but indeed gave in to Titan’s ultimatum. Titan wouldn’t book any shows in Nassau unless the Coliseum officials refused to allow Crockett in"
"Crockett ran four shows in Nassau, starting with a debut card in late November which was a major success, but no more successful than expected since it’s been history of both the NWA and WWF that they have impressive debut crowds in new cities and then things get a lot harder. The second card was the infamous Bunkhouse Stampede disaster, which drew an $80,000 gate—a big drop from November but still more than Titan had averaged. However the ill will from the 1/24 show ultimately results in a poor gate for the third show, and while the gate improved to $48,000—in the range of what Titan averaged on the non-Hogan shows, for a subpar line-up earlier this month, apparently the die was cast"
"The major blow in a sense is that as of this weekend, they lost their time slot on WPIX in New York, so they are without local television in the two biggest markets (New York and Los Angeles). I presume the loss of the television was actually a decision made by Crockett, since they were paying for the time, rumored to be in the $6,000 per week range, and it made no economic sense to pay that kind of money for a slot when you have no arena to run live shows in"
"It seems like Midnight and Fantastics are trying to win match of the year almost every time they go out from the reports I’ve been getting"
"The next pay-per-view show will be 7/10 from the Baltimore Arena with Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger and the triple tower of doom gimmick that World Class is using at the Texas Stadium show. Actually they should be happy, not mad, that World Class is trying the thing first because they’ll get a chance to see all the bugs in the gimmick before debuting it on a major PPV show, which is important because they can hardly afford another PPV show like the Nassau Coliseum event"
"I finally saw the Barry Windham turn and It was tremendous. Every, and in every, I mean 100% of the phone calls I received this week on the turn, agreed that it was a great turn. Some didn't like Dusty getting involved since it really was a Windham vs. Luger issue, but I didn't mind as much because Rhodes has been a significant part of Windham's career almost from its onset back around 1979 in Florida, so it made sense for him to get involved when Windham turned. I can see the point of those who thought he was stealing the spotlight once again"
"The 1988 Bash tour will be from 6/26 through 8/7, and will include something like 40 or 41 Bashes around the country. There will be War Games in many of the cities"
"The Crockett wrestlers are to be given a one week vacation after the Bash tour, which is going to be incredibly brutal on the wrestlers since they'll be working six weeks without a day off (since they have to do TV during those weeks as well, there will be plenty of two-a-days for TBS studio tapings even though I'm told they will be running only one house show per night, so no split Bash cards as there were in several cities last year). After that point I’m told the wrestlers will be kept on a three week on, one week off schedule so it should result in fresher bodies for the house shows in the fall, at least among those who survive that brutal Bash tour with their bodies intact"
"NWA took the World Class group's TV time in Jackson, MS and celebrated by sending a tape that aired this past weekend totally void of any commentary. There were interviews (inserted for the card in Houston on 5/13) but no fall-by-fall on the entire tape"
"On 5/21 in Richmond the main event will be Ric Flair vs. Sting for the NWA title and if the match goes the entire time limit, there must be a winner and they will have three judges at ringside who will pick the winner. On that one, I’m not kidding. I just hope they’ve learned from their mistake last time, but after that last fiasco, even if I was planning on doing a judges angle, I wouldn't advertise it. It can’t sell any tickets and probably will keep a few people home."
"They are cutting back to one show per night, which ultimately means several wrestlers, from here will be cut. Let's figure on 28 guys being safe—that’s the Horseman, Dusty, Nikita, Williams, Steiner, Sullivan, Rotunda, Fantastics, Midnight, Sting, Warriors, Powers of Pain, Ivan Koloff, Perez, Luger, Jimmy Garvin which is 23. That leaves Zbyszko, Armstrong, Horner, Jive Tones, Simmons, Ron Garvin, Sheeps & Morgan plus Terminator, Ace and Kendall Windham (all of whom have family connections that may keep them in the running even though they otherwise may not be considered) for a limited number of spots. I'm assuming Valiant and Chris Champion are history, and Murdoch will be kept around between Japan tours. Perhaps Ricky Santana could sneak in. I don’t expect Zbyszko to make it."
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Post by DSR on Feb 25, 2021 14:14:20 GMT -5
I only recently realized this was the prequel to the WCW thread that was so much fun. Took me a couple days, but I'm now all caught up!
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Post by jason1980s on Feb 25, 2021 15:04:57 GMT -5
Why was Jimmy Valiant banned from TV? I am friend with Jimmy and would really like to know? Did he do something or was his character just getting stale/taken off TV and Meltzer made up a lie or someone told him one which he reported?
I remember posting in the WCW thread that Dusty must have done something bad to Meltzer, maybe turned him down for a job, and it seems like Dave really does have a grudge against Dusty more than anyone else. Midlife Rider is funny for a C list comedian but not a journalist. But then again, I wouldn't call Dave a journalist- I guess he's a comedian.
As always I love seeing these write ups. I'm just not a Meltzer fan. I subscribed to the newsletter and stopped after about 2 years because I couldn't handle the rumors and innuendos that never came true.
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