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Post by Mandarin Dessert Version 0 on Mar 12, 2021 7:00:21 GMT -5
Meltzer's insulting nicknames just make me think of those days of Youtube when people would post WWE content with "Cheese Souffle" and other codenames to try to escape detection from WWE's lawyers. Ah, I remember those. Still laugh about one video with the title "Bork Laser Comes Back And Beats Up Green Man".
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2021 4:34:00 GMT -5
Mar 1, 89
"The negotiations with Piper are the biggest non-ring story of the week. Apparently the NWA agreed to Piper's request for a $500,000 one-year wrestling deal and NWA folks even claim Piper gave a verbal OK to the deal. However, Piper's agent, Dave Wolfe (most of you should remember him as Cyndi Lauper’s manager from the WWF skit which put pro wrestling on the map as far as entertainment back in 1984) is a lot tighter with Titan and McMahon was able to convince Piper to work the Wrestlemania shot"
"Officially, Piper is only committed to the one non-wrestling appearance for Titan, and supposedly, NWA head honcho Jim Herd actually flew to New York on Monday (skipping the PPV event in Chicago) to meet with Piper about signing the one-year wrestling deal, but I'd say it is 98% certain that if Piper is appearing in Wrestlemania that he isn't going to be wrestling in the NWA"
"The Chicago crowd was around 7,500 in the 9,000 seat building. About 5,500 was paid ($67,000) which has to be disappointing considering all the television hype given the show. At the same time, the NWA simply isn't drawing any live houses right now because they have no hot issues. Those that were there were rabid beyond belief for a good portion of the card"
"Titan's MSG show on Monday (no results yet) drew a legitimate sellout of nearly 20,000 fans, and its Chicago card two days before the NWA PPV event also drew a legitimate sellout of 19,000 fans at the Horizon (17,900 paid—$223,000 which is the second largest indoor gate in the city behind only the Wrestlemania II live show which had the $100 tickets and drew $294,000 even with a half-house)"
"Michael Hayes pinned Russian Assassin #1 (even though Dave Sheldon had been Russian #1 all along, this was Jack Victory as Sheldon was either fired or quit earlier in the week)"
"You don't know how sick I was at this point watching guys work the left arm"
"Jim Cornette & his Midnight Express of Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane downed Paul E. Dangerously and his substitute New Original Midnight Express of Jack Victory & Randy Rose. Someone joked to me that of the 50 wrestlers in the NWA, at least 10 or 12 of them are Jack Victory"
"Condrey had a dispute with management over his future role (or if there would even be a future role) and felt management hadn’t done its part to rectify the situation and he stayed home in Colorado"
"Best line of the match was Paul E's as Stan was getting pounded and was near getting pinned when he said, "I'll see you in Florida, Stan." "
"There legitimately is talk of bringing Rose back as a babyface in a few weeks due to a contract technicality and having him feud with Victory, but booking like that will kill the loser leave town gimmick forever"
"Steiner put Rotunda in the sleeper, leaned back and held the hold while the ref counted Steiner's shoulders pinned. The crowd was dead at the finish (I seem to recall it as the type of finish Eddie Graham booked in Florida in the early 70s). Just because of the novelty, I would have thought it was a good finish except it was too similar to what they did next"
"Luger had another good match here, so I don't want to hear anymore about Luger not being a good worker. He needs to be in there with a Flair or a Windham to have a super match, but he's tons better than Hulk Hogan and a lot of the other muscleheads that he's often compared unfavorably to."
"Windham did a bunch of finishers in a row, including a superplex, and finally gave Luger a back suplex but Luger raised his shoulder at two and Windham's shoulders remained down for the title change"
"Then they started working the left-arm. Please, somebody pick a new bodypart to work!!!"
"Steamboat was cheered more than booed, although he wasn't cheered like Flair. In fact, there were sporadic chants early of "Steamboat sucks," although by the end of the match, there were loud chants of "Steamboat, Steamboat" as he was caught in the figure four"
"Steamboat come off the top ropes for the cross bodyblock, Flair pulled ref Tommy Young and Steamboat hit both with the move and had both pinned for several seconds. It's too bad Teddy Long didn't get out quicker and count the fall, because then Steamboat would not only have been World champion but also head referee"
"There is nothing in this world that could have followed the last match, so out come Kendall Windham and Steven Casey. I have no idea why. Almost nobody stayed to watch, and those who did were so buzzed out from the previous match that it was hopeless. And then, to make matters even worse, they were out there for just over 25 minutes. This match didn't even air on the PPV. By the time they were done, there were maybe 400 fans left in the building"
"I should mention also that there were a significant amount of boos when Steamboat brought his son into the ring after the title win. The NWA had better hope that enough fans saw the match and respected Steamboat because of how great it was, because this does have the potential to be another Ron Garvin situation where fans resent Steamboat for carrying Flair's title, and that final quarter of 1987 was the beginning of the disaster that killed Jim Crockett Promotions"
"You knew things were going to get off on the right foot when Jack Reynolds (who was being considered by TBS to be the new announcer to replace Tony until his performance as ring announcer here) started with an "are we on?" question and then announced the Russians as being from "Kilos, Russia at a combined weight of 288 pounds." "
"Butch Reed pinned Steven Casey in 17:36 after a flying shoulderblock. The most action in this match was provided by a couple in the front row"
"Guess what? They spent the match working on the left arm. This early 70s style is driving me crazy because today's fans don't understand it nor believe in it"
"Steamboat kept doing armdrags and working--the left arm"
"Rick Steiner pinned Rip Morgan (sub for Ray Candy who was fired two days earlier when he refused to do a job for Bobby Eaton at the Omni card)"
"The main event was supposed to be Road Warriors & Genichiro Tenryu defending the six-man tag titles against Sting & Junkfood Dog & Michael Hayes. Well, as they were doing an interview with Sting's team, they went back to do more preparing and Kevin Sullivan locked them in their dressing room. This was done because the folks at the NWA were scared to death that Sting would get booed on national television if he faced the Road Warriors"
"Sting and company were unlocked but it took them forever to get to the ring. I thought they were locked in Pittsburgh and were taking a cab it took so long. Maybe they had an escalator which said "Dogs must be carried," so JFD had to be picked up"
"Almost every match was that work the left-arm style and it didn't work once. I take that back, it does with the Road Warriors because nobody has ever seen them sell a bodypart so heavily before so it makes their foes look good and the fans do get into that, but with everyone else, it comes off as restholds"
"They have to quit bringing Richard Steamboat Jr. on television. It was fine at first, but if they keep doing it, the fans will boo Steamboat"
"Vince Young with NWA is actually Mark Scarpa (son of Chief Jay Strongbow, worked as Private Pyle in CWF) and lots of folks are pretty pissed about George Scott turning-down Brian Pillman, Tom Prichard and others and bringing in this guy who got booed out of the studio"
"Lance Russell is the front-runner to take Tony Schiavone’s spot with TBS"
Mar 6, 89
"There are no statistics officially available on the PPV, although officially the live show in Chicago drew 5,111 paid and $68,700 (there were nearly 8,000 in the 9,000 seat Pavilion because of papering the house). This compares with 17,900 paid and $213,000 that Titan drew at the Rosemont Horizon two nights earlier (by the way. Titan is claiming the 19,000 fans in attendance for the event is the largest crowd ever to attend an indoor event in Chicago)"
"The biggest news of the week is that the NWA officially hired Lance Russell to fill the void created when Tony Schiavone went to the WWF. Russell will host NWA Worldwide Wrestling, which will become the focal show of the syndicated package. While some questioned the hiring of Russell, citing his age or the belief by some that he wouldn't be as effective in a new setting or outside the WMC studios, my own belief is he was easily the best of the available candidates. Russell was voted by Observer readers as the Announcer of the year four consecutive years (1984-87) before finishing second to Jim Ross in the latest poll"
"The NWA also hired longtime Atlanta wrestling host Joe Pedicino who will work both in front and behind the camera. Pedicino, who created, produced and hosted Pro Wrestling this Week and a local wrestling block on UHF stations which drew strong numbers on Saturday nights, has also already started working for the Atlanta-based company"
"Rotunda vs. Steiner was fair, but actually a great many readers expressed vehement displeasure with the finish (and I've got to say when they showed the finishes of the matches in order on the TBS show this weekend having that finish and the Windham-Luger finish after each other really looked uncreative). Two guys pinning themselves in consecutive title changes is a bit much to take"
"Steiner's interview, where they tried to explain his character by having his brother (in for just the one shot) say he was in a car wreck which splattered his brains was stupid. The Steiner character, which was so hot just seven weeks ago, has cooled off about 85 percent since then"
"The reason Kendall Windham and Steven Casey followed the main event is that most systems had scheduled the event to go off the air at 10:48 p.m. Eastern time, however a few systems had it set for three hours, so they had 12 minutes to kill on some systems but couldn't air anything important. That's why Ross and Magnum were talking like they'd be right back and didn't sign off before the credits, because on some systems they came right back. Now as to why Windham and Casey went 25+ minutes supposedly is because there was so much commotion backstage because of the title change, that everyone simply forgot they were out there and nobody gave them the signal to finish things off"
"The NWA is in terrible shape. After Chicago, the houses the rest of the week were atrocious. The syndicated TV shows that aired over the weekend were worthless and do nothing to get fans interested in angles (well, if there were any angles to speak of) or upcoming house shows"
"They have to run house shows that stem from events on the TV shows rather than make matches which make no sense (ie Road Warriors vs. Ivan Koloff & JFD; Road Warriors vs. Koloff & Murdoch; Flair & Windham vs. Gilbert & Luger and other matches which headlined events this weekend that didn't draw any fans)"
"This Iron Sheik thing is the epitome of this effort of bringing in burned-out Titan talent which means nothing (if they meant even the slightest bit, they'd still be with Titan) when there are young wrestlers with potential out there (there aren't a lot, but they are there if you look closely). And when they do bring in a new face (Vincent Young aka Mark Scarpa), it is chosen by nothing to do with ability but simply because someone is doing a friend a favor by hiring his son (strange enough since the friend who is being done a favor for works for your main competition)"
"This is no longer the era where you promote a territory, aiming your appeal at migrant farm workers with xenophobic and ethnocentric angles with regional appeal. This is national. Your audience ranges from blue collar to rock stars to unemployed to millionaires to doctors, lawyers, grocery clerks, NFL football players, teenagers, small children, senior citizens and everyone I haven't mentioned yet"
"The Samoan Swat Team is the best young tag team in the business. One week they have all the managers look at them (ala Bigelow/Beefcake/ Savage's Titan debuts) but instead of playing out the skit, which if done correctly, takes at least a month or two, they already have got their manager"
"There's heat between All Japan and the NWA over the fiasco involving Tenryu's match in Cleveland. The bout had been hotly promoted in Japan for weeks and with wrestling treated as sport in Japan, they had a hard time explaining Kevin Sullivan locking the opponents into the dressing room and taking the match for himself. Think about the nightmare I had last year trying to explain the twin referee finish in the Andre-Hogan match to the Japanese and try and have them put it into words where they could make it sound legit"
"Here's this week's Roddy Piper news. Piper will work Wrestlemania as a one-shot deal for Titan (it is rumored he will receive $50,000 for the single appearance but you can choose to believe it or not believe that figure if you wish). At that point. Piper wants to return to the ring and will go to the highest bidder. As of Monday (2/27), he was leaning toward the WWF but my remark about it being 98 percent sure he's with Titan long-term was denied. Last word I'd heard was NWA officials seemed to have lost interest in him because his definition of full-time (10 shows per year) and their definition were two different things"
"WWF doesn't have any TV in the Seattle market, so they took out ads during the Catch the Pinfalls segments on the local NWA TV shows"
"The 2/20 USA Network special with the debates was poorly received by almost everyone I talked with. Officially, the show did a 3.6 rating and a 5.3 share, which is actually lower than the week after the Rooster/ Heenan/Monsoon angle. I doubt it caused anyone to skip Chitown Rumble, so it didn't accomplish its purpose, as the NWA show did better in PPV than anyone except the most enthusiastic TBS employees expected"
"Crowds this past week for house shows saw a crowd of 2,000 on 2/21 in Indianapolis, 600 on 2/22 in Dayton, 2/24 in Baltimore drew a $27,000 house (maybe 2,500) which is the smallest Baltimore house (Baltimore has long been the NWA's hottest city) in four or five years and 2/25 in St. Louis drew 1,360 paid and $15,980"
"The Fantastics quit during the middle of this past week but are still around and working out their notice. They were only getting three bookings a week and had been kept off the major house show cards so were limited to working in those Carolina High School Gyms in towns so small that they aren't even a dot on the map"
"St. Louis show saw Kendall Windham pin Drew Tossell, Butch Reed pinned Steven Casey, Rick Steiner beat Danny Spivey via count out, Ric Flair & Barry Windham beat Eddie Gilbert & Lex Luger when Flair pinned Gilbert, Road Warriors beat Ivan Koloff & Junkfood Dog, and Steve Williams & Mike Rotunda beat Sting & Michael Hayes when Williams pinned Hayes. Now explain how any of those matches make sense when you consider what is being pushed on television and you understand why the crowds are as small as they are"
"TBS has offered Sting a three-year contract reportedly for $280,000 per year (keep in mind I don't expect anyone to believe these money figures, because I'm skeptical of them as well, but they always could be true). His current contract (for something like $52,000) expires at the end of April. Talk is that TBS feels that Sting and Flair are its two most marketable commodities but they've got to put Sting into something meaningful to take advantage of his charisma"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2021 6:17:32 GMT -5
Mar 13, 89
"WWF already has the wrestling fans of this country talking about 4/2, while the NWA hasn't even announced that it will run a show that day on TBS and won't until this coming weekend"
"Baba wanted Steamboat vs. Flair to headline the 3/8 card but somehow it fell through even though Flair wasn't booked at all this week in the U.S. since he was planning on making the tour originally. Flair vs. Tenryu was to headline the big show, but they didn't want Steamboat vs. Tenryu because Baba felt that Steamboat was the same calibre of champion as Curt Hennig and that he didn't want Tenryu to be unable to beat Steamboat whereas it would be okay if Tenryu or Jumbo couldn't beat Ric Flair (which is all ridiculous considering Steamboat was always popular in Japan in the past and there is no denying his ability)"
"On Lance Russell's final TV show in Memphis Lance Russell wasn't there. I'm not sure of what went on but the 3/4 show had been heavily publicized locally in Memphis as Russell's final show, and I do know that the local promotion didn't like the fact that so much local media attention had been brought to this and didn't want the TV show to turn into farewell Lance since they had a show to promote on Monday....Much of the local media attention centered on the idea that Lance, after 30 years in Memphis, had finally made the big-time (since he was NWA bound), and Jarrett didn't like the insinuation that his group was the small-time"
"Several sports sections that gave pro wrestling the minuscule coverage treatment are now dropping coverage altogether because of McMahon's admissions that wrestling isn't sport"
"Ivan Koloff is booked for some independent shows in the Carolinas with Nikita so his association with the NWA may be close to an end"
"The sound mixing on the NWA Pro show that aired on 3/4 came off amateurish to the point it looked like something on cable access stations. And the product. Eddie Gilbert & Vince Young as a team? Ivan Koloff & Michael Hayes as a team? I was laughing at seeing Uncle Ivan come out to the ring to Badstreet USA, but how do these matches have any correlation with what is being pushed at the house shows? In fact, what is being pushed at the house shows? I watch the TV and have no idea"
"On TBS we had the Iron Sheik twirling the clubs (have you ever seen that before?), singing the Iranian national anthem. What a new idea? The problem with the clubs is that even if it is impressive and hard to do and may have gotten over in the early 80s when it was a completely different business anyway, with all the monsters and muscleheads in the business, every fan watching believes Dr. Death, the Road Warriors, Luger, etc. could do the same thing with ease. Whether they could doesn't matter, because if fans think they can, the feat isn't impressive"
"They have just started doing the generic localized interviews the same way Titan does them (an announcer, who I believe will be Joe Pedicino announces the card in your town, ticket outlets, etc. and the wrestler does a taped interview, without mentioning town so it can play in all cities)"
"Actually (and I'm going to get killed for even bringing this up because of the incredible amount of work this requires) in the state they are in having to turn around the business, they should have the wrestlers do actual individualized localized interviews in which they talk about the town and specifically bring up things that happened at the previous show in the town (in order to make the fans feel they missed something by not attending, since most of them didn't attend) and try and make the local cards seem important again"
"TBS will move its Saturday TBS tapings from the TV studio to the 785-seat Centre Stage Theater in Atlanta starting 3/29, so the first tape should air the day before the New Orleans show"
"The TBS a.m. show (7:05 Saturday mornings) is no longer a new taping but instead the syndicated version of the NWA Main Event show. It was ridiculous to do another hour of taping when viewer levels are so low"
"Heavy pressure has been put on everyone to sign contracts and just about every key main eventer has re-signed a new deal with the exception of Jim Cornette & Midnight Express (deal runs out I believe around April). Ric Flair and Sting have agreed to terms, while the Road Warriors and Luger are still locked in through the remainder of 1989 due to existing contracts"
"NWA is now running the syndicated tapings similar to Titan in that they tape three hours of the same show at each site instead of taping an hour of NWA Pro and an hour of Worldwide each taping. On Monday in Macon they taped three hours of NWA Pro, while Tuesday in Columbia they taped three hours of Worldwide"
"Don't get caught reading this in the dressing room"
"A good Japanese star being talked with about heading in as a Matsuda protege. Will know for sure by next week"
Mar 20, 89
"Basically a slow news week as both major promotion are gearing up for the 4/2 big show wars. Well, at least that's what you would think would be happening, although the NWA has barely even mentioned they will be running a card at the Superdome that day, and has yet to mention anything about it being a live TBS special, with us now three weeks away from D-day"
"They also have yet to start plugging their Friday night special which airs before the Superdome show. The Friday night special, which will air at 10:50 p.m. Eastern time will be an interesting idea, as the show will retrace the history of the NWA World title from its inception in 1905. Just to be technical, the NWA wasn't formed until 1948 but they claim a direct lineal descent from Frank Gotch, who was the first man on this continent with what mat historians would claim would be a legitimate World title claimant"
"An interesting bit of front office jockeying this past week. Don Glass, a Titan employee who was Ed Cohen's assistant in scheduling arena dates, quit this past week to head the department in the same area for the NWA, for double his Titan pay. This is only significant because it is the first time any front office employee from Titan has ever been raided by another promotion"
"There was a lot of controversy in Japan about Steamboat only working middle of the card and facing middle-of-the-card guys here, despite being NWA champion. Ironically, as some of you probably are aware, Steamboat is actually half Japanese and when he used to work here in the early 1980s was considered almost like a native, and the fact a native won the NWA title (which was covered heavily in the newspapers and magazines here) should have been a bigger deal. I'm really not sure of the reasons for all this, but obviously Baba has devalued the importance of the NWA title to the Japanese fans"
"The following are a list of the new NWA rules and regulations as handed down by Jim Herd and George Scott: 1. All wrestlers, managers, referees and other officials must be in the building one hour before the start of the card; 2. Babyfaces and heels can't be seen mixing in public together; 3. No profanity on the mic at house shows or on TV, including using of the word butt, ass or whatever, also no off-color gestures either on television or in the ring; 4. Wrestlers or managers are not allowed to use the house mic before intermission; 5. No low blows; 6. No using chairs, tables or the guard railing (those are Abdullah the Butcher's only three moves); 7. No more than one man on the floor at a time before intermission (in other words, no fighting outside the ring before intermission); 8. No touching referees; 9. Wrestlers must dress in collared shirts while entering and leaving the arena (in fact, they even want reporters covering matches to wear suits and ties if they go backstage); 10. No spitting (Iron Sheik's only move) at any time on either TV or house shows: 11. No pulling down tights (Dick Murdoch's best move when he's not in Japan); 12. Wives, girlfriends, children and pets aren't allowed backstage; and 13. No long distance phone calls from the new office phones in Atlanta by wrestlers"
"Super Black Ninja debuted at the TBS tapings on 3/12 (for air date this weekend) under the ring name "The Great Muto" (real name Keiji Muto) and will be managed by either Hiro Matsuda or Gary Hart, or maybe even both"
"Brian Pillman was given an early April starting date and three different names have been mentioned as possible tag team partners for him, one of whom works here and it would be a disaster, two of whom would be welcome newcomers"
"It appears that those in charge have made the decision to not renew nor re-negotiate the contract of Jim Cornette & Midnight Express so the odds are very good that they won't be around much longer. I do know that several in the organization are adamantly against this decision but unless things change within the next month, well, you know what's coming"
"3/8 in New Orleans drew just a $15,000 gate, which doesn't bode well for the Superdome show. The other cities on the Mid South tour also drew poorly"
"Somebody tell Vince Young to quit breakdancing before he becomes the No. 1 heel in the NWA"
"Kendall & Barry Windham beat Michael Hayes & Luger in the match where Hayes turned heel. Finish saw Hayes sneak up from behind Luger and Kendall hit him with a flying lariat (similar to the Midnight Express' double goozle) and Kendall pinned Luger (pretty good, turn got over great)"
"Try to figure this booking out--Road Warriors have title defenses later this month against JFD & Ron Simmons (who is still around but nobody would know it)"
"The NWA plugged newsletter "Matwatch" in their commercial for the Chitown videotape with Steve Beverly's comments that Windham vs. Luger was a surprisingly good match. You know, while this is a compliment, it's not exactly a quote I'd have chosen because if it was surprisingly good, what does that say for Luger (since Windham's ability is beyond question at this point)? Evan funnier is all the accolades (that is a real word) for Flair-Steamboat as the greatest match since the Egyptians built the pyramids and the match they use the quote for was Luger-Windham?"
Mar 27, 89
"As for the NWA card at the Superdome--Rajun Cajun Clash: The Ultimate Secret--the less said about the finances the better. They picked the wrong city. The wrong building. I don't even want to get into how badly the thing has been hyped. But, this is a TV special and TBS has garnered good ratings for every Clash, with a lot weaker line-ups and limited on-air promotion. With the right hype, this is still the best day of the year for the NWA to run a TV show for ratings purposes because nobody is going to forget the day of the show by accident and go fishing"
"The 3/11 World Championship Wrestling show drew a 2.2, which is among the lowest ratings the show has ever delivered, even in Dusty's worst days."
"The Saturday show was consistently in the 3's and the ratings started falling during the summer of 1987 when Dusty instituted the 30 second squash/90 second interview format. They hit rock bottom last fall and were threatening to be below a two for the first time ever, but things started picking up with the Road Warriors turn, Midnight Express turn, arrival of Dangerously and the TBS purchase. The ratings grew, especially with TBS pressuring Jim Crockett and Dusty Rhodes into putting at least a quality match on each show, and they were in the 2.9 to 3.1 range. Not great, but an improvement. In recent weeks, since they've been back to the all-squash format, it’s been around 2.5 and 2.6 but last week shows a solid and dangerous drop"
"Nikita Koloff, Ivan Koloff, Lex Luger, Sting, Ric Flair, Rick Steamboat, Jimmy Garvin & Precious, Magnum T.A., Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Baby Doll and Sam Houston appeared on 3/11 at Nikita Koloff's gym to do a benefit to help pay the medical expenses of Nikita's wife Mandy, who has cancer"
"The syndicated shows were better this week with the announcers back at ringside instead of in the studio, however the cutting to commercials needs lots of work. In certain cases, they cut interviews in mid-word and mid-sentence and hit the commercial"
"Michael Hayes will team up with Jim Ross on the Saturday TBS show starting this weekend so Magnum T.A. won't be around. It's a cold business"
"The first New England card in almost one year is on 4/10 in New Haven with Rick Steamboat vs. Mike Rotunda on top for the NWA title (sure, it'll probably be a good match, but they needed Steamboat vs. Flair as a headliner for their first show in a new market), plus Lex Luger vs. Flair for the U.S. title and Road Warriors vs. Dan Spivey & Kevin Sullivan as the only matches announced"
"It could be worse. On 4/5 in Miami they are announcing Luger vs. Iron Sheik for the U.S. title as the main event and only other announced bouts are Flair vs. Sting and JFD vs. Abdullah. Those matches are practically begging people not to come. Flair-Sting will probably be technically good, but they aren't programmed with each other so their is no impulse to buy tickets to see it. Luger vs. Sheik on top gives you the impulse to avoid the card at all costs"
"Keiji Muto also debuted as the Great Mota, and starting this coming week on TV will also be said to be the son of Kabuki and blow the green mist. I still can't figure out why they don't make him a babyface as he's got the looks and certainly his moves would get him over (the moves you don't see him doing, the guy does the hottest moonsault press in wrestling and he's now winning his matches with a Kabuki-style thrust kick)"
"Didn't last week's TBS show seem like nothing but two hours of super-patriot ga-ga and xenophobic commentary by the announcers? To say it got tiring is an understatement"
"Most of the rules listed as far as ring work goes that we listed last week are being flagrantly violated on the house shows, particularly the off-color gestures ban"
"Abdullah the Butcher is definitely gone. The promotion basically insisted he cancel Japan and work the 4/2 New Orleans show since they had some fancy gimmick entrance (I think Abby was to be brought into the ring in a coffin) planned, but since Butcher makes $7,000 per week in Japan, you know where his priorities lie. Especially since he was booked with Sting and Luger in a lot of cities and with the NWA doing clean pinfalls up and down the cards now, you know he'd have to do the jobs there"
"There is talk that Titan is going to run a house show on 5/6 in Nashville to hurt the live gate for the PPV event the next night"
"On the syndicated plugs in Louisiana last weekend, they announced the 4/2 card as being in the Downtown Municipal Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. so they got both the building and the starting time wrong on TV"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2021 15:48:29 GMT -5
I'm really curious what happens here. Because in my mind, 1989 NWA is a high point of wrestling. With Flair vs Steamboat, then Flair vs Funk. Sting vs Muto. And an undercard filled with talent. It feels like a high point but that's not the narrative here, especially with the level of poor management.
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Post by BlackoutCreature on Mar 14, 2021 16:53:52 GMT -5
I'm really curious what happens here. Because in my mind, 1989 NWA is a high point of wrestling. With Flair vs Steamboat, then Flair vs Funk. Sting vs Muto. And an undercard filled with talent. It feels like a high point but that's not the narrative here, especially with the level of poor management. Jim Cornette (yeah, yeah, I know) always said that while fans might remember WCW 1989 for great wrestling, behind the scenes it was a mess with piss-poor management, sinking ratings, house show business dying, and just a ton of missed opportunities.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2021 18:32:42 GMT -5
I'm really curious what happens here. Because in my mind, 1989 NWA is a high point of wrestling. With Flair vs Steamboat, then Flair vs Funk. Sting vs Muto. And an undercard filled with talent. It feels like a high point but that's not the narrative here, especially with the level of poor management. Jim Cornette (yeah, yeah, I know) always said that while fans might remember WCW 1989 for great wrestling, behind the scenes it was a mess with piss-poor management, sinking ratings, house show business dying, and just a ton of missed opportunities. Well he's talking about something relevant to his knowledge there and not his current insanity, so we'll skip that. But yeah that's really the picture coming out of this. What a mess.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2021 6:05:52 GMT -5
Apr 3, 89
"What almost seemed like an inevitability the past two months turned into reality this past Tuesday when the Midnight Express and manager Jim Cornette officially gave notice that they were quitting the NWA. The official corporate word is that the two sides couldn't reach an agreement on a new contract, but of course the real story goes a whole lot deeper than that and has caused a genuine lack of confidence from many both within the corporate end and talent end of the World Championship Wrestling office with the direction the promotion is going creatively" "The seeds of this split actually began prior to the TBS takeover of the NWA. The Turner brass felt that the $225,000-per-year contract that Cornette, Eaton and Lane all had signed with Jim Crockett was too high given the amount of revenue the company was producing. In fairness, the contracts of the Road Warriors, Paul Ellering and Lex Luger were also considered in the same boat" "Even before George Scott came in as booker there had been not so quiet whispers that had come our way that those in power felt that when the contract expired on April 15th, that the money they would offer would be such a major cut that the trio would leave, so therefore the company actually started preparing for the departure some months back. The trio was almost never booked on the major cards, and when they were, it was low on the card to downplay their position. Even at Starcade, the Midnight vs. Midnight match took place before the Russian Assassins vs. JYD & Ivan Koloff match, and the men involved in the match had to appear in the Bunkhouse Stampede later in the show, which none of the wrestlers in the "important" matches had to do" "When Scott arrived as booker, things got worse. Their TV time was cut way down. Cornette was no longer allowed to commentate during his team's television matches, which had been his trademark for years. They even cut down on Cornette’s interview time, which was a strange decision on the surface (without knowing about the direction things were going) since Cornette is generally acknowledged as being the best interview in the business. The team was booked almost exclusively on small spot shows in the Carolinas, which made no sense since that made it even harder to justify their big salaries since they were working on shows in cities too small to draw houses of any size to begin with" "There was a lot of behind-the-scenes heat as well, as apparently there was trouble nearly a decade ago between Scott and Bobby Eaton when Scott booked Georgia and the two never spoke during this tenure. The word had hit the streets that TBS would try to sign Cornette, but that Eaton & Lane would be history because it was felt they were no longer marketable. It was also fairly common knowledge within the industry that Cornette wasn't willing to break up the act. Because of that, all three were offered contracts to remain on board for a figure between $100,000 and $125,000 for next year, but their position would primarily be to put the Samoan Swat Team over and for Cornette to put Paul E. Dangerously over and little thought had been given to their role after that job had been completed" "On the NWA front, Barry Windham underwent his hand surgery on Tuesday and he isn't expected back in the ring for another six to nine weeks, which puts it very touch-and-go as to whether he'll be able to appear on the 5/7 PPV show. The loss of Windham, easily the No. 2 heel in the promotion and one of the best workers around, thins out the depth of talent in the NWA even more" "Steamboat was considered a disappointment on tour even though he had good matches. The fans wanted him to wrestle a fast-paced high-flying style while instead he mainly sold big and his offense was stiff chops with just a few flying moves. The magazines said he was too small to be a World champion. He did look tiny against Shunji Takano (6-5, 260) and appeared to be about the same size as Tiger Mask" "Besides the Midnight Express & Cornette leaving in a few weeks, Junkfood Dog is also history as he was fired after missing about a week's worth of bookings" "Brian Pillman, Bob Orton and Buddy Landel are all scheduled to start at the TV tapings in Florida on 4/3 and 4/4. I'm not sure of the roles for any of them" "Mota is going to have to be turned babyface because people are in awe of his moves" "The 5/7 PPV show from Nashville hasn't been completely booked, but I was given the tentative line-up as Steamboat vs. Flair for the NWA title. Lex Luger vs. Michael Hayes for the U.S. title. Road Warriors & Sting vs. Varsity Club, Samoan Swat Team vs. Gilbert & Steiner, Randy Rose vs. Jack Victory and Iron Sheik vs. Ranger Ross plus the Oakridge Boys will appear (the country music group, not a new tag team)" "Titan has the same building booked for an evening show on 5/6 to counter the NWA's PPV show the next afternoon. I don't blame Titan for this, since those are the rules this game is being played by even though it does show Titan's talk of not being concerned about this group is nothing but talk. However, booking a competition show the night before another similar event is unethical of the building in Nashville and really, the NWA should have pulled out and moved the show somewhere else, to a different "Music City" (how about moving it to Detroit and calling it Motown Showdown)" "They did a very good angle where Randy Rose returned, saying his lawyer found a loophole in the loser-leaves contract (which kills the loser leaves town gimmick because now everyone knows the guy who loses doesn't really have to leave)" "Rose was mainly brought back in because the company admired his work ethic in working hard all the way out, in comparison to his partner (Dennis Condrey, who was originally slated to be in the bodyguard role) who walked out even though he was going to get to stay. However, in five minutes, I came up with four "excuses" to bring him back that would be more effective than the loophole idea which just makes the NWA look like it doesn't know how to write contracts and ruins the LLT gimmick" "3/23 in Raleigh drew 800 (two reasons, first was it rained nearly three inches that day, but the most important reason is that the TV in Raleigh, instead of plugging this card with Flair vs. Steamboat, instead was advertising a card in Fayetteville with Luger vs. Rotunda on top)" "3/18 at the Capital Centre drew 5,000 and $66,000....Steamboat pinned Flair in 32 minutes of a match which blew the top off the five star scale. This match was significantly better than their Chicago match and deserved something like *****1/2 to ****** stars as a fair grade. Those in the know were amazed at how good this match was, particularly when they realized they had another match later that night in Philadelphia (which wasn't as good, but was still a fantastic match)" "Even if Orton is enthused and wrestles well, he can't help the NWA as fans perceive him as another WWF wash-out" "New nickname: "The ----in' Great Mota." "
Apr 10, 89 "The good news is this weekend wasn't a dream and that George Scott was replaced as the booker of the National Wrestling Alliance this past Tuesday. The bad news is, he was signed Sunday morning by the World Wrestling Federation and put together the finishes for Wrestlemania V" "Scott was fired (er, quit) on Tuesday for a variety of reasons, the main being the NWA was going nowhere, the television was awful, and the big Rajun Cajun Clash on 4/2 from the Superdome, going head-to-head with Wrestlemania, was the worst-hyped major card in recent history. With just a few hundred tickets sold days before the event, it looked like Sunday would be the ultimate embarrassment for the NWA" "There is a lot of speculation that the booking will wind up in the hands of Cowboy Bill Watts, who was scheduled to be contacted and negotiated with at last report. Other names have been mentioned but it appears Watts is the key candidate. Although many can point out flaws with Watts, or any other candidate, the NWA needs a major shot in the arm when it comes to improving the syndicated television and in getting fans out to the buildings. Almost any directional change would have to be viewed as positive given the systematic destruction of the promotion over the past two years" "Speaking of free, we now go to the empty Superdome (estimated crowd of 4,200—don't know the paid right now but they had sold less than 900 tickets the day before the event) for Rajun Cajun Clash VI" "Before we head to the building, I've got late word that Bill Watts isn't coming in as booker, at least that was what the wrestlers were told on Sunday and the booking team will remain Gilbert, Sullivan, Flair, Ross, Herd and Barnett. I'm told that the first four names are all equally powerful while the latter two are basically observing the proceedings" "Flair is taking a very active interest, which many of you will take as good news but I don't. Being Ric Flair is a full-time job, and the stress of being a booker added to the stress of having to have the best match of the night each and every night and having to keep in ultra-peak condition is more pressure than anyone should have, let alone the wrestler who more or less the promotion is built around" "There were a lot of problems, particularly with timing as two of the matches (Sting vs. Rip Morgan for the TV title and Lex Luger vs. Jack Victory for the U.S. title) took place after the show went off the air. Several matches had to be shortened because they fell so far behind in time and the final two matches won't air until the TBS show this Saturday afternoon, which wasn't the original plan. Truthfully, it is a major negative that on your big TV special that neither Sting nor Luger appear." "The F-----‘ Great Muta pinned Steven Casey in 8:11 with the moonsault press. The opening entrance was great. Muta blew the green stuff in Casey's eyes at the start and then proceeded to do every great move in the back, including a backward dropkick, a handspring elbow drive (outside the ring, no less). With the right way of using Muta, he can be the Jimmy Snuka of the 1990s, as he's actually a tons better worker than Snuka was in his prime" "Junkfood Dog pinned Butch Reed in 9:56. Dog missed something like eight shows in a row and was said to have been fired, but returned on Monday in Chattanooga and they wanted him on this show because they thought he'd draw fans in New Orleans. If it was 1983, he would have, but this isn't the same wrestler" "Bob Orton pinned Dick Murdoch in 9:33 when Murdoch went for the brainbuster, but Gary Hart tripped Murdoch and Orton fell on top for the pin. This match was awful, but there was a reason. Apparently they were supposed to go 15-16 minutes, so they started out slow. The first seven minutes were horrible, then all of a sudden they got the signal to go home early and had to go right to the finish" "Steve Williams & Mike Rotunda captured the NWA tag team titles from the Road Warriors in 11:40 when Williams pinned Hawk in a screw-job finish from new heel ref Teddy Long. This finish sounded a lot better the day before the card than it looked when they actually did it. It cracked me up because Jim Herd, as the show began, paid tribute to guys like Sam Muchnick and swore to uphold the credibility of the NWA, then pulled a heel ref bit that Sam would have rather had a heart attack than have done" "For the record, it was the Roadies' first pinfall loss since the fall of 1985 to Jim Garvin & Steve Regal" "Steamboat won the second fall in 15:26 BY SUBMISSION (when was the last time you heard a major star submitting?) with a double chicken wing" "I don't know how they did it, but just after the Flair-Steamboat match concluded, Titan Sports had a TV ad for their 900 number telling people to call in and hear the live Wrestlemania reports. They got this commercial through last year and there was hell to pay. How they ever got it through this year is beyond me" "Further embarrassment was that Ted Turner's own Cable News Network sent a film crew to Atlantic City and gave a ton of coverage to WM, but never once mentioned the Clash. It should be pointed out that those at the top should never try and keep a news organization from covering a legit story because it involved a competitors' product or influence the nature of the coverage. At the same time, it is still embarrassing for the NWA itself that a "sister" company ignores their big show and never mentions when Steamboat beat Flair for the NWA title" "USA Today did a story on Friday mainly on WM with all the familiar hype, but did mention Clash and did have quotes from Steamboat and Hogan somewhat negative toward the other organization. There was some heat in the NWA about Hogan calling the NWA a "small outlaw group" but it appeared from the article that Hogan wasn't happy when Steamboat said the WWF doesn't have as much wrestling as the NWA" "Everything planned for more than two weeks down the road, including the PPV line-up for Nashville, has been revamped with the new booking team and lots of changes are expected over the next few weeks" "Buddy Landel and Billy Jack Haynes, who were supposed to be starting here right around now, are no longer coming in" "Only departure thus far is Vincent Young, who was fired on Wednesday when he refused to do a job for Bob Orton on television. He probably wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway" "The only advantage of George Scott's poor job of publicizing the New Orleans show is that they were able to switch the line-up around since nobody really knew any of the matches except Flair/Steamboat going two of three falls" "Officially, there were just 1,300 paid attendance at the Superdome for a house around $15,000 which is worse than pathetic, but they picked the wrong building. As mentioned before, back in 1985 when Hogan and Orndorff were drawing sellouts everywhere, they came to New Orleans and only drew 2,000. Ironically, they drew 6,000 fans (NWA) in New Orleans back in late October when the Road Warriors beat the Midnight Express to win the NWA tag team titles" "Sting captured the NWA TV title from Mike Rotunda twice this past week. He won it first on 3/29 at the TBS studio, but the match was so bad they decided to re-do it the next night at the first Center Stage taping. The second night, the match was very good and aired this past Saturday. If you'll notice on your tape, you'll see the ref, not Rotunda bringing the title belt to the ring and Rotunda wasn't announced as champion (even though he was referred to as champ in the commentary). That's because the fans who attended both nights were told in a pre-taping announcement that due to controversy the first night, the title was held up and would be decided in the opening match on 3/30" "Nick Patrick is in as a ref to take the spot that Teddy Long may or may not vacate when they decide what to do with him next. Heard the talk was he'd become a new heel manager of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed" "Terry Funk is being talked with about heading in" "4/1 in Richmond drew 1,000" "Samoans did a clean job in Chattanooga for Gilbert & Steiner, but that was because the ref counted three when he wasn't supposed to" "Here's the latest on the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette. They are still leaving after the 4/9 card at the Omni. The two main reasons why they were leaving were contract difficulties and also because of Scott. With Scott no longer around, and with the new booking team apparently in favor of having and pushing them, the door is already open for a return. However, the team is getting squashed regularly so it is to everyone's advantage right now for them to simply leave and work some independents" "Titan got its commercial for the 900 number on during the TBS show by buying six commercials through dummy corporations. TBS caught five of the six, but one slipped through once again"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2021 5:02:19 GMT -5
Apr 17, 89
"Let's just say that Piper's stock in the wrestling business in one day dropped from being the hottest free agent in the business, to something barely above the level of Sgt. Slaughter"
"As for the Clash, the show drew a 4.3 rating which translates into 2.1 million homes. Of the six Clash specials, this was the lowest rated. Last year's Clash which ran head-to-head with Wrestlemania, drew a 5.8 rating and peaked at a 7.8 for the final 15 minutes of tho Ric Flair vs. Sting match. This year's show peaked at a 5.0 for the Flair vs. Steamboat match, which is 2.42 million homes. We all know the reason for this. The show was kept a secret until the last two days prior to it"
"Ironically, the Saturday TBS show on 4/1 drew a 2.0 rating, which was the lowest rated Saturday TBS show in history, and just a minuscule 3.5 share. It was the first time a TBS Saturday p.m. show had less than one million households tuned in since the earliest days of TBS becoming "The Superstation." So while the show was heavily promoted the final TV show before the event, the numbers of viewers watching that hype was smaller than ever. These ratings can be blamed on the George Scott regime producing dull TBS shows the previous weeks, and then deciding against hyping the Sunday special for fear it would hurt the live houses (which didn't draw anyway) in the interim"
"By the way, for those in this immediate area, on Thursday, April 13, TBS will replay a two-and-a-half-hour edited version of the Clash from 7:20 p.m. Pacific Time. This replay is even more of a well-kept secret than the original Clash show"
"The Great Muta's acrobatic act was the hottest single person performance of the day, save the Flair-Steamboat classic match. While he isn't coming out of Clash with anything close to the momentum Sting had last year (which slipped away for the most part anyway), the NWA does have a genuine new face which it can headline with. I think everyone realizes at this point that Muto's eventual position is as a babyface, and the potential is there for him to be the 1990s version of Jimmy Snuka. The trick now is to get him positioned right and turn him right so he reaches that potential"
"The funniest part of Muto's sudden rise to prominence is that he's been on this continent for more than a year, having spent several months in both Puerto Rico and with World Class, and was held back from doing his hot moves in both territories. The theory was espoused in both places that fans would never cheer a Japanese wrestler and his hot moves are babyface moves. Those in charge at the NWA must have originally felt that way as well, since he was brought in as a heel, given the Kabuki gimmick and Gary Hart. He's opened some eyes that were closed shut in other territories with his work the past few weeks"
"The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran its long-awaited piece on the mat wars by Mark Madden the day before Wrestlemania....Another, from Jim Cornette, said: "If I was wanted by the FBI or the Mafia wanted to kill me, I'd want to be on that (Clash of The Champions) show. No one knows when it is, where it is, or who's on it. It's a well-kept secret." Jack Petrik made two quotes which were alluded to in the story, but not printed verbatim, which would have caused quite a stir within the industry for their honesty and also for kayfabe violations: "We offered Dusty (Rhodes) a very nice scenario if he'd stay. But it would have meant turning heel and losing matches, and he didn't want to do either of those things." "I think December 26 was indicative of the fact that we plan to use decisive pinfall endings, something NWA fans haven't seen for a long time. But it's not easy to convince these guys they have to lose occasionally."
"Bill Watts and Herd had a meeting on 4/1 in New Orleans, but the meeting was said to be brief and there is no chance Watts will be coming in, at least at the present time."
"They did manage to get highlights from New Orleans onto every show, both cable and syndicated, over the weekend which is an improvement from the past (after the Chicago PPV, they didn't have the Flair-Steamboat title change news on syndication for two weeks because they worked so hard at keeping the title change news "under wraps" and looked silly because Scott changed the nature of the finish (not the result, but the finish) in Steiner's loss to Rotunda and Steiner did an interview on syndication talking about a different finish than what they did, involving outside interference from Steve Williams)"
"All of the NWA shows booked by Scott have been changed, with most of the cards this month now headlined by Steamboat vs. Flair matches"
"The NWA will be doing an autograph party in the big mall in Nashville on 5/6 to promote the PPV the next day, which will be in competition with Titan's live show that evening which Titan was using to slice the live gate in Nashville"
"No word on what they are going to do with the CWF belt since Tom Prichard starts with the NWA on 4/15"
"There are rumors flying everywhere that Owen Hart is going to the NWA, and I know the NWA is very interested in him, but that isn't the case"
"Those in charge here have been so impressed by Muto that they want to sign him for a one-year contract"
"Have you ever noticed JFD's trunks with the stars on the side? Somebody joked to me they should sew on a negative sign before the stars"
"Tentatively, TBS will begin airing a Friday night wrestling show on June 22nd for one hour starting at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time (7;30 p.m. on the West Coast). The format hasn't been decided yet. The booking committee wants it to be a traditional wrestling show, while others want it to be "magazine" format so it doesn't look like a duplication of any other wrestling show on television"
"The Great Muta blew out his knee on 4/3 in Daytona Beach at the TV tapings so he's not going to be quite as impressive"
"Road Warrior Hawk and Steve Williams nearly had an ugly confrontation in the dressing room in Daytona Beach, but they were separated. Whoever separated them must have a lot of guts"
"4/5 in Miami drew just 500 (I'll bet Dusty's PWF draws better than that in May)....Luger pinned Sheik DUD (I'm told Luger isn't to be blamed for this being a dud match— and you can see how much drawing power this match had on top)"
"4/8 in New Haven, CT drew 4,200 with a card that was totally changed into a much better show with the changes not announced until the last TV show the day of the card so they probably would have drawn better for this if it had a few weeks of advertising the Flair-Steamboat match (was billed as Flair-Luger, Steamboat-Rotunda)"
"Reed & Sheik beat Gilbert & Steiner to apparently win the U.S. tag titles as Reed hit Gilbert with the flagpole right in front of Teddy Long and got the pin— after the match Tommy Young and Teddy Long argued about the finish—fans left the building believing the title had changed hands but as of last word, I believe the title is still with Gilbert & Steiner since Steiner was wearing the tag belt the next night at the Omni"
"Jim Barnett has been traveling to independent shows to scout new talent. Lots of names will be getting look-sees"
"Johnny Ace is headed in. Last plan I heard was that Ace & Shane Douglas would form a tag team called "The New Generation" (I guarantee that was an Eddie Gilbert idea because they had a team called The New Generation there several years back of Johnny Wilhoit & Bart Batten who I believe were managed by Tojo Yamamoto)"
"Brian Pillman was in Florida but didn't work the tapings because they haven't decided what to do with him. He'll either team with or feud with Prichard, depending on what role Prichard is, is the latest word I've heard"
"Terry Gordy should start up here before June and expect the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette to return sometime before the July PPV show"
"4/20 in Memphis, headlined by Flair vs. Steamboat, is billed as "Lance Russell Night." They should have made the PPV show in Nashville "Lance Russell Night" in that city as well as it probably would have helped the live house, just done the festivities before the PPV went on the air because Russell isn't well enough known yet nationally to put something like that on PPV"
"Dave's Pet Peeve #103: Announcers who say, "he didn't hook the leg" whenever someone kicks out of a near fall. Gorilla Monsoon started this obnoxious trend, but Jim Ross and Michael Hayes are falling in the same pattern. Why don't I like it? 1) It makes the wrestler in the ring who doesn't hook the leg look stupid; 2) It devalues any attempt at a pin without the leg hooked. Fans are trained to believe the wrestler will kick out if his leg isn't hooked, therefore it ruins the suspense of the near fall (the most dramatic moment in wrestling) and if a guy does get pinned without his leg hooked (Savage at WM for instance) it makes him look even worse"
"I do know a lot of wrestlers in the business will say that you can't rate a match unless you've worked a match, including one of my best friends in this business, but to me that means you can't say if a movie is good or bad unless you are an actor, or if a musician at the night club is good, or bad unless you play the same instrument. That would mean no director should ever make decisions on actors unless he's appeared on the big screen, no football coach should make talent evaluations on players unless he has played that same position in the NFL. Think about this. How many combined matches did Sam Muchnick, Vince McMahon Sr., Vince McMahon Jr., Wally Karbo, Frank Tunney and Hisashi Shinma have?"
Apr 24, 89
"Topping the news this week is the status of Barry Windham within the NWA. Officially, as of press time, Windham and the NWA have parted company with Windham being fired, however that decision isn't as final today as it seemed to have been earlier in the week"
"Windham was supposed to undergo an operation where they were to re-break his injured hand and re-set it, several weeks back. Since that time, Windham has basically disappeared from view, his name hasn't even been mentioned on television nor was anything done such as an angle which would explain his absence to the fans. The surgery at one point was alluded to on television, but the point was never made strong enough that most fans have no idea what is going on"
"Windham and the NWA hierarchy didn’t remain in contact over the past few weeks. There were then allegations that Windham never had his surgery. There was apparently difficulty in reaching Windham on the part of those in charge in order to find out when he was returning to action. Apparently Windham himself was miffed that he wasn't picked to be a member of the new booking team, and that the originally laid-out scenario of Windham becoming the next NWA champion had been changed since all the pre-planned scenarios have been changed to a different direction with the recent booking change. There were several other difficulties as well which led to Windham officially being fired early this past week"
"Since that time, Windham and Jim Herd have had several telephone conversations to try and work out a reconciliation. It hasn't been agreed upon yet, but both sides are still talking. It appears the future of Windham within the NWA will be decided one way or another this week. A key determining factor seems to be whether or not Windham actually had his hand operated on"
"Tom Prichard, who was originally scheduled to debut this week, won't be coming in right now because the two sides failed to agree on money"
"The biggest acquisition, both in terms of reputation and helping the organization, at least in the short-run, is Terry Funk, who reached an agreement this past week and will be starting sometime in May, and will quickly be moved up into a key spot"
"I don't recall the exact wording, mainly because I was gagging at the time, but it was something like Steamboat was defending family values or the honor of our country or something (whatever it was, it didn't seem like the World title was the issue) against "the Japanese mercenary" Ric Flair. Is that the best thing they can come up with? Don't they know the Matsuda angle has died, and it hasn't gone to booking heaven, either? The best thing they can come up with to say about Flair, the five-time champion going for No. 6 in his supposed "last shot," is that he's a Japanese mercenary?"
"A second commercial, later in the show, just mentions the Flair-Steamboat match in very vague terms and the Oakridge Boys live in concert and nothing else"
"Wrestling fans want to see wrestling. They don't want to see country music. Country fans aren't going to buy a PPV to see the Oakridge Boys. Concerts on PPV have bombed in every instance, with stars that have tons more broad-based appeal than the Oakridge Boys"
"Bill Watts and Jim Ross in the Mid-South group tried the same type of a promotion in Tulsa using country star Jerry Reed, but it was obvious when the show was over (the concert was on last, and almost nobody stayed for the concert after the wrestling matches were over). The show was the wrestling, not Jerry Reed. At least they learned from their mistake, and never booked a country/wrestling show again. Verne Gagne also tried it once in every city before learning his lesson"
"The fact that the Titan commercial still managed to air during the NWA special on 4/2 shows me that the TBS rank-and-file have no idea there is a wrestling war going on, nor are they doing anything to help build up the wrestling company"
"Scott Steiner gave his notice to Lawler and will apparently work "C" team shots for the NWA"
"Maximum Overdrive beat Tokyo Bullets in one of the worst matches in history (negative three stars, would have been worse except Joey the Bullet took good bumps but Overdrive was totally out of their league here and screwed up everything they tried)"
"On the Windham deal, it should be pointed out that Windham signed a big contract and got a big bonus before he either disappeared to have surgery or disappeared to not have surgery which is why things are tense since if he didn't have the surgery, it was like he took a big bonus and then talked out on the company. I've been told Windham's contract was for around $250,000, but you know how it is with those kind of numbers"
"Teddy Long (by the way, everyone believes here that Long is going to make an excellent manager. He's been told to view as much videotape of Slick as possible and to do everything totally the opposite). Long's future role is to be "What Don Cornelius would be like if he was a heel." "
"Also on TBS, Jim Cornette announced he and the Midnight were leaving the NWA (expect them back mid-to-late June, but nothing is 100 percent yet). After watching their TV match with the SST, they are officially "dead" as an act anyway for the short term and really, the more time they are gone, the better off they'll be when they come back"
"Kevin Sullivan missed some dates as he suffered a broken eardrum when Missy Hyatt slapped him on television and wasn't allowed to fly"
"Fans who attended the Daytona Beach TV taping were furious since the advertised main event of Flair vs. Luger never took place and Flair only did interviews and didn't wrestle"
"The tag title switch with Sheik & Reed beating Gilbert & Steiner didn't hold up, which they alluded to on the TBS show"
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Post by Feyrhausen on Mar 16, 2021 6:01:01 GMT -5
"I do know a lot of wrestlers in the business will say that you can't rate a match unless you've worked a match, including one of my best friends in this business, but to me that means you can't say if a movie is good or bad unless you are an actor, or if a musician at the night club is good, or bad unless you play the same instrument. That would mean no director should ever make decisions on actors unless he's appeared on the big screen, no football coach should make talent evaluations on players unless he has played that same position in the NFL. Think about this. How many combined matches did Sam Muchnick, Vince McMahon Sr., Vince McMahon Jr., Wally Karbo, Frank Tunney and Hisashi Shinma have?" This. Entertainment is pretty much always subjective. Reviewing a match, a movie, a song, etc. is basically saying whether you enjoyed it. It doesnt matter if you have never had a match yourself.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2021 4:20:13 GMT -5
May 1, 89
"With nearly six months in since the TBS regime took over, popularity if anything, has decreased. The biggest house show of the year, at least that I can recall, was the $68,700 gate for Chitown Rumble. TV ratings are at their lowest level since pro wrestling became a staple on TBS, or even Ted Turner's WTCG in Atlanta" "The NWA has done a lot, in fairness, over the past few months to recognize their problems and make changes to deal with them. The syndicated shows are still nowhere near where they need to be, but there are slow but noticeable improvements. As for TBS, the improvements have been even more noticeable, particularly in the last four weeks. They had been weak in bringing in new, young talent. In recent months, they've added the cream of the crop from the smaller circuits, particularly the Great Muta, the Samoan Swat Team and Brian Pillman" "The NWA is perceived by the general public as the second-rate wrestling league. It doesn't matter if the wrestling is better in the NWA, and usually it is, but the general public doesn’t believe that is the case and doesn't perceive of that being the case. Ric Flair and Rick Steamboat have put on some of the greatest matches in years, and probably as good a consistent series of matches that have been seen going back an awfully long time. But the public still doesn't perceive it that way because neither of the two is Hulk Hogan" "The loss of Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson last fall made an impact that the group hasn't recovered from because it created a certain perception. The biggest stars in the NWA, and Blanchard & Anderson were always portrayed as two of the top four heels in the group (along with Ric Flair and Barry Windham), are only good enough to become middle-of-the-card tag team performers in the WWF" "Moreso, the NWA did itself even less good by bringing in and attempting to push JFD, Butch Reed and the Iron Sheik, all of whom were perceived by the public as WWF rejects" "While hardcore wrestling fans still attend NWA events, and are far more rabid in their behavior than other fans (which explains why 2,500 fans at the Showboat in Las Vegas make ten times the noise that 10,000 fans would at a WWF event), the general public's perception of the NWA isn't good" "They need to create cross-over celebrities to compete as drawing cards with Titan's cross-over celebrities. I don't want to hear that this wrestler or that wrestler is incapable of it, because Titan has made stars out of wrestlers with no talent (Brutus Beefcake) and those who can't even speak (Ultimate Warrior) and to a lesser extent even those with little genuine charisma (John Studd)" "Look at Sting. One year ago, he was the big rising star of this business, probably second only to Hogan in popularity. One year later, it has basically been a wasted year. He hasn't gotten over any more. He hasn't expanded his popularity. His name on the marquee doesn't get people to buy tickets. He's just another charismatic babyface" "Ironically, I'm having to write this at a time when it truly appears that the in-ring product and television product is taking a major turn for the better. But while the NWA can produce great events, they haven't been able to sell them to the public. The hype for events has been bad. Local promotion for house shows is non-existent and disorganized an awful lot of the time" "Negotiations between Windham and the NWA aren't dead, and Windham and NWA VP Jim Herd are still talking. The last word I've got is that Herd asked Windham to sign a release form to allow them to get the straight story from Windham's doctor (who right now isn't allowed to discuss the case with management due to patient/doctor confidentiality). If everyone can get the straight story about Windham's injury, whether or not he had the surgery that he claimed to be taking time off to get, and everything else, it would open things up for an eventual return" "Roddy Piper is claiming to be interested in working for either the NWA or the WWF right now. NWA folks are a little apprehensive as there is still bitterness over the last negotiations. Apparently Jim Herd missed the Chitown Rumble card and the title change because he had a meeting scheduled with Piper's manager David Wolfe in New York. However, Wolfe had already made the deal for Piper to work at Wrestlemania so Herd's trip was for naught" "Dusty Rhodes is now claiming: 1) PWF will take over ESPN within 90 days: and/or 2) Ted Turner is begging for him to come back as booker of the NWA depending upon who you listen to" "Johnny Weaver quit the promotion early in the week so all the scheduled spot shows he had arranged over the next few weeks had to be canceled" "Kendall Windham no-showed all his dates this week so it's presumed he's history but nobody knows for sure" "Tonga the Polynesian Savage debuted on TBS this Saturday, but he was already history before the show even aired. Lots of talent, but too many problems to deal with" "The new working name, although this may be changed again before it hits television, for the Shane Douglas & Johnny Ace babyface team are "The Dynamite Dudes." I suspect both them and Brian Pillman will be getting big pushes as the NWA will try and use them to recapture the lost teenage girls audience" "4/23 in Columbus, OH drew 700" "Makhan Singh (Mike Shaw) from Stampede will be starting here in mid-June, but with a completely different character" "There are some major internal problems as well. The Clash replay on 4/13 did a 1.5 rating, but it was a well-kept secret. It followed an NBA game and during the game Bob Neal plugged the movie "Clash of the Champions" after the game. After the office corrected him and told him to plug that it was a wrestling card, the producers refused to plug the show claiming it was beneath their dignity to plug a wrestling card"
May 8, 89 "Truthfully, even those in the NWA are admitting that it'll hopefully be by July 23rd's PPV before they are ready to even get the business ready to turn around and until winter before things will be positioned to where serious business can be drawn. It's all been said before, but it doesn't matter what angles and what the quality of the matches are right now as far as ability to draw big houses now. Until the TV viewership is back up, there aren't enough fans watching the TV to draw the big houses. And that's just cable ratings I'm taking about. The syndication package needs major work, which everyone already knows" "The NWA badly needs consistency right now. The announcers seem to change on a weekly basis on syndication. One week on TBS we have a weekly Danger Zone and Michael Hayes at color commentator and now the past few weeks we have neither. I'm not even sure what the status is of them" "Sting appears, making his Japan debut, from 6/2 to 6/8" "The funniest incident of the whole show took place before the card when Bruce Grummert and the twins arrived with front row seats wearing NWA Wrestle War T-shirts and a big brouhaha ensued with half of the Titan security force trying to get them to wear a Hogan shirt, which they refused. It's actually a real long and funny story, with them being threatened with ejection and all, but everything was smoothed over as Titan promised them future front row tickets if they'd wear Anabolic Warrior T-shirts for the card" "TV ratings from the weekend of 4/22 and 4/23 saw the Saturday show (moved to late night because of the Braves) do a 1.6 rating and the Sunday show (in the normal time slot) fell to a 2.1, which is the lowest since the Jim Ross & Paul E. show began" "Effective in June, all single show markets that carry NWA will carry Worldwide, which includes the Bay Area. If the NWA has one syndicated show in a market, the markets that have NWA Pro will be moved to Worldwide which will become the "A" show in syndication" "They did a test match between Sting and Great Muta and it went over great. The fans all cheered Sting which is what the NWA wanted since nobody seems to want to boo Muta" "4/30 in Philadelphia drew 1,200....Steamboat pinned Sheik to keep the NWA title in 10:00. Lots of fans left before and during this match. Steamboat did as good as possible but bad match and nobody cared. 1/2*" "The problem with the clubs is that fans perceive a guy like Sting or Luger or the Warriors as Supermen because of their bodies, and Sheik as a fat old man, and Sting should be able to twirl the clubs with one finger if Sheik can do it and it made Sting look bad by not even trying"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2021 3:55:25 GMT -5
May 15, 89
"Nashville this past weekend was the latest battleground for Wrestle War '89. The NWA ran its PPV show from the Municipal Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, while the WWF countered by running a show the night before in the same building. The NWA then countered by running a free autograph session and T-shirt giveaway promotion at a local mall. The WWF then countered by bolstering its announced line-up (with the wrestlers coming in on the swing from Washington, D.C.) with the main matches on the other major show occurring that night by chartering a plane in from Indianapolis and flying in the two top matches from that show"
"The live crowd was 5,200, and with many of the seats blocked off because of the Oak Ridge boys concert, they were looking at around a 7,000 capacity, I'd guess. The gate was right around $37,000 which is hardly impressive, although early word is the 900 number grossed an estimated $129,000 (of which the TBS side will see an estimated $70,000 based on its cut). The WWF drew 7,950 fans and $76,000, and without the seats blocked off by the concert, I'd estimate the capacity would have been around 8,500"
"The promotion at the mall, which went head-to-head with the WWF card, drew several thousand people and was said to be the most successful promotion of its kind ever in the Hickory Hollow Mall in Memphis. Ironically, I think the mall show didn't help the live business much, if at all, because when the local DJ who hosted the mall show got in the ring the next night and mentioned the show, there was virtually no reaction"
"The Great Muta (Keiji Muto) pinned Doug Gilbert in 3:03 with the moonsault press. Gilbert subbed for Junkfood Dog, who simply no-showed without calling in and it appears really is history this time out. The best guess is JFD would have been asked to do the same job in the same amount of time, and didn't come."
"The Dudes got a surprisingly big initial pop considering very few in the crowd had ever seen them (they debuted the previous night on TBS, but the show wasn't at its normal time so I doubt too many folks saw it). They come out with skateboards and work in these striped bikini shorts which will get them over big in San Francisco if you get my drift"
"Then came the Oak Ridge Boys. They played for 24½ minutes, which was too long. They are from the Nashville area and weren't booed, but they weren't met with any kind of enthusiasm either. It was a polite response and that's about it. The lobby was packed during the concert as well"
"I guarantee having the Oak Ridge Boys and promoting them as heavy as they did cost them more PPV buys than it added. I know of several people who didn't buy the show specifically because they were afraid of spending money to see a country concert and don't know even one person who bought the show to see the Oak Ridge Boys"
"Flair will be injured and out of action until June 14th at the next TBS Clash of the Champions where he will meet Funk in a non-title match. The show, originally set for Center Stage in Atlanta, will apparently now be held in Fayetteville, NC although nothing is definite on that front yet. I believe the first Flair-Funk title match will be on the July 23rd PPV show from Baltimore"
"Steiner tore his bicep two nights earlier in Montgomery, AL and we had been told there was no way he could work this match, nor work at all for at least a month. But there he was"
"There was a definite mood about the place that this was Day One of the New Beginning of the NWA. Maybe yes. Maybe no. From a booking standpoint, this was the best-booked PPV show thus far. I can't judge the overall production, announcing, etc. but they've gotten nothing but praise from those I've talked with"
"The WWF show wasn't bad, at least in comparison with the WWF house shows I've seen of late. Backstage at the show included John Cougar Mellencamp of rock fame and Ric Flair. We missed the first match because we were at the Mall watching the NWA thing"
"Anabolic Warrior beat Rick Rude via count out for the IC title in the match which had the most heat of the card. The first 90 seconds of this match were as good as any 90 second period in the Flair-Steamboat match. I'm not kidding"
"Scott Steiner is in and will work a lot of matches against Mike Rotunda billed as "battle of the suplexes." "
"4/24 in Dayton, OH drew just 200 fans in a 13,500 seat arena as Douglas pinned Doug Gilbert 1/4*, Muto pinned South **, SST beat Justice & Emory **1/2, Ranger Ross pinned Sheik DUD, Sting pinned Rotunda **1/4, and Luger & Steamboat beat Flair & Hayes when Luger pinned Hayes ***"
May 22, 89
"The NWA's pay-per-view show on 5/7 from Nashville is pretty well being considered the best all-around PPV event in the short history of wrestling's involvement in the industry. I'm almost embarrassed to report the results of our thumbs up, thumbs down poll, but here it is: Thumbs up: 296, Thumbs down: 0"
"My own feeling is the best PPV wrestling show when it comes to strictly the wrestling itself, was Starrcade '88, which had six good matches out of seven. The best overall produced PPV wrestling show was Wrestlemania III, because the atmosphere was upbeat and the show came off like the greatest show ever, the matches were good enough for the most part (although the main event ranks among the worst matches ever) and 93,000 fans attending a show made an incredible impression"
"I don't expect any real turnaround at the gates immediately, but see this more as seeds planted for a possible success on the July 23 PPV show. Two things are neccessary for this show to be a major financial success—Terry Funk must get over as a tremendous heel, and judging from his work thus far, if he is positioned correctly, it would be hard for this to fail. Also Ric Flair has to get over as the No. 1 babyface in the promotion, ironically a position that some are still leery of giving him (there is significant thought that Flair should be a "tweener," a World champion who can play both face or heel depending upon the opponent—which it is thought "legitimizes" the World title because both faces and heels get shots unlike any other title in North America)"
"The talk I'm getting now is that the first Flair-Funk meeting will be held back for the PPV show, and that they are definitely being pulled for the June 14 Clash of the Champions from Fort Bragg, N.C., billed as "Guts and Glory.""
"6/10 has the return of the Midnight Express & Jim Cornette (and too soon and with not enough fanfare judging from the TV over the weekend)"
"A major positive step for the NWA was announced on Friday when TBS, likely through the influence of Jeff Carr, agreed to move the Saturday "World Championship Wrestling" show back to 6:05 p.m. Eastern. This move helps for several reasons. First, it puts the show back in its traditional time slot that it has appeared for most of this decade, when it was a staple at the top of the cable ratings (where it no longer is). The show no longer has the poorly-rated U.S. Olympic Gold sports anthology series as a lead-in. Most importantly, it limits the scheduling changes due to Atlanta Braves baseball commitments"
"It is still rumored that Barry & Kendall Windham are Florida bound, but one wonders just how much longer that Florida promotion is even going to remain in existence"
"For those into Rap music, several have noted that there is a Rap band out of Compton, CA called "N.W.A." which stands for "N****** With Attitudes." (that's what they claim it stands for, don't send me nasty letters about that). There is another rap singer now going by the stage name "Slick Ric." "
"They held TV tapings at Centre Stage in Atlanta on 5/9 and 5/10 and drew full houses and turned people away both nights for the Terry Funk shows. They had about three jobbers, plus Johnny Rich, Brad Armstrong, Davey Rich and Eddie Guerrero (youngest brother of Chavo Guerrero—a star in Mexico and reputed to be the best worker of the family) all do stretcher jobs for Funk in a two-day period"
"Rick Steiner will be out of action for four weeks with his torn bicep muscle. I originally heard that Scott Steiner & Eddie Gilbert would be defending the U.S. tag belts in his absence, however since he won't be gone that long, my guess is that plan has changed"
"TBS on 5/6 (after the Braves) drew a 1.6 rating while on 5/7 (ironically, head-to-head with the PPV show) drew a 2.4 rating"
"Ricky Santana is definitely headed in and also coming in will be Jim Garvin"
"I'm almost thinking they are doing too much with these shows rather than emphasizing the angles that can draw money. This stuff with Murdoch, Orton, Reed, etc. can't draw money so why waste angles on them? It just dilutes the strength of the angles on top that you need to get over in a big way now more than ever."
"Paul Dangerously put the right emphasis on the Flair-Funk thing which has to be broken away from the pack as the angle of the year or it won't get over. If it is pushed as one of 10 angles, it'll be lost in the shuffle and won't get over the way it has to. Building the promotion around Terry Funk is not the answer long-term for obvious reasons, but it gives them something to build around short-term while setting things up for the long-term. It buys time for setting up, in other words"
"Kevin Sullivan vs. Scott Steiner? Why was Paul E. in Sullivan's corner and what purpose was it since he wasn't involved in the finish? Why did Sullivan win cleanly? And after Sullivan won cleanly, why did they raise Steiner's hand and say he won by DQ when the finish was Steiner missing a tackle into the corner and Sullivan back suplexing and pinning him?"
"Also needed was an explanation as to why the tournament didn't include the First Family (as US tag champs, wouldn’t they be the logical first seed) and Varsity Club (the ex-champs) especially when nobody has seen Ross & Simmons tag, doesn't know who New Zealand Militia is and knows Orton & Reed haven't teamed up either"
"One more problem. I can see something like five or six imminent "turns" just over the next few weeks that are being hinted. All that will detract from the Flair turn and also confuse fans, most of whom won't be able to keep up with all the new twists in the story line"
May 29, 89
"The NWA has released dates for its American Bash tour this summer. The tour will begin on June 22nd at the Capital Centre in Landover, MD and follow on 6/23 in New Haven; 6/24 in Philadelphia; 6/25 in Pittsburgh; 6/26 in Raleigh; 6/27 in Greenville; 6/28 in Greensboro; 6/29 in Salisbury, MD; 6/30 in Hampton, VA; 7/1 in Charlotte; 7/2 in Atlanta; 7/5 in Charleston; 7/7 in Roanoke; 7/8 in Boston; 7/9 in Providence, RI; 7/10 in Springfield, MA (I'm told this date is suicide since they have no local television except on a New Haven station and TBS isn't carried on cable in Springfield); 7/11 in Chicago (a Tuesday night); 7/12 in Carbondale, IL; 7/13 in Jackson, TN; 7/14 in Memphis; 7/15 in Richmond, VA; 7/16 in Indianapolis; 7/20 in Lexington; 7/21 in Dayton; 7/22 in Philadelphia (a second Bash) prior to the PPV show on 7/23 in Baltimore which will be headlined by Ric Flair's return as a babyface against Terry Funk. I don't have the remainder of the dates yet, although the final Bash will be 8/6 in Atlanta and the first week of August will mainly be cards in Florida"
"The decision seems to have been made to keep Flair out of action until the Baltimore card in hopes of maximizing interest in the PPV show, but doing all those major shows without Flair on top is going to make it harder to draw at all these house shows. At the same time, if the PPV pops, the profit potential is larger than a month's worth of house shows, at least with the kind of house show business the NWA is doing right now"
"From what I understand, the latest talk is that the 6/14 Clash of the Champions from Fort Bragg, NC which includes the semifinals and finals of the tag team tournament, will now have Steamboat vs. Funk as the top singles match instead of Muta vs. Sting. While that will obviously be a great match, it is tricky trying to book a finish out of it being that both men "need" wins to set up the future. I guess the problem in the NWA right now is that almost everyone "needs" wins right now to heat up, but almost nobody can afford to lose and TBS has committed to doing winners and losers"
"The problem is that as these shows are getting better, they seem to be getting viewed by a smaller and smaller audience. The 5/13 TBS show did a 1.8 rating, which is larger than the two previous times it followed Atlanta Braves baseball, but still well below the audience level needed to start things turning around. Following the Braves has been a killer, and was a killer once again this past Saturday, however they should have been able to get more interest coining off the PPV show that was so hot. The 5/14 TBS Sunday show, which aired at its normal time, also did a 1.8 rating, which is the lowest in several months—ironically this was the show that aired the Flair-Steamboat title change with the Funk angle and the Luger-Hayes title change."
"Another major league gaffe took place this weekend on the syndicated show that aired in Raleigh, and it may have aired in several other markets as well when they were going over the Bash card and announced a match with the Freebirds vs. Dynamic Dudes as being for the NWA World tag team title (which won't be decided until 6/14, but I guess now you know which one of two teams was originally scheduled to win it)"
"I wish I had a dime for every time I've been told by WWF officials that we aren't concerned about the opposition and we pay no attention to what they are doing. Well, NWA people sometimes say it as well, but both are lying like crazy when they say it. It was no coincidence WWF booked Nashville the night before the NWA's PPV, then stretched the show out to past 11:30 p.m. (forcing the NWA to start setting up its special effects at 1 a.m. before an afternoon show when normally these type of things require 24 hours set-up time (not like it hurt or anything)"
"The NWA has a Bash booked on 6/23 in New Haven and suddenly the WWF booked Hartford the night before with Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage (Hogan never works Thursday nights) and the guys were doing localized interviews specific for the market on television this weekend. There's nothing wrong with this—in fact, it's smart to do because it should hurt the NWA crowd but just don't tell me about not being concerned about the opposition and the opposition not even being considered competition"
"The last time I checked, the WWF had sold more than 5,000 tickets for its return to Oakland (Hogan vs. Savage) while the NWA had sold less than 100 tickets to a card two weeks earlier in Oakland"
"There is no big announcement of a major talent acquisition so lets stop the rumors about Ted DiBiase, Randy Savage or Hulk Hogan jumping ship. From what I'm told, the NWA wouldn't be interested in spending the kind of money it would take to lure away a top WWF star right now because in the shape their syndicated TV is right now, it wouldn't result in anywhere near enough increase at the box office to justify the expenditure"
"Iron Sheik was fired after an altercation with security guards in the Nashville Airport after the PPV show. They wanted to check Sheik's bags, Sheik became belligerent and an incident occurred"
"Steve Williams is in the process of turning babyface while in Japan (don't you hate those non-existent turns that occur when Williams tours Japan? Hopefully this time they won't make him cut an interview in Japan at least)."
"Pet Peeve No. 106: Don't you hate the abrupt cuts in the middle of brawls that always occur on the NWA show, then when they come back from the commercial they never acknowledge how the brawl ended?"
"Teddy Long has got some charisma. He's going to make a good manager even if Reed & Simmons as a heel team sounds like nowheresville"
"They got Armstrong and the Richs to do the TV jobs for Funk by paying them well for the job"
"Funk did a great interview after the Armstrong match, saying how the police came to his ranch in Amarillo and wanted to arrest him for beating up an ugly woman and he didn't know what they were talking about. Then they said it was a woman in Nashville and he said that it wasn't a woman, it was Ric Flair"
"Most I've talked to found the faces abrupt change for Flair to not make any sense, since nobody has given an explanation as to why everyone all of a sudden is on Flair's side that was feuding with him just a few weeks ago"
"Lord Humongous (Sid Eudy) quit last week and is getting a try-out this coming Wednesday at the NWA tapings in Atlanta"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2021 4:53:35 GMT -5
June 5, 89
"There's two schools of thought on what the additions of Rhodes and Windham will mean to Titan, or more, against the NWA. Truthfully, neither has worked for the NWA in months, although both were major stars with the group and to the general public are still associated with the NWA. Some people will see it once again as another example of the NWA being unable to keep its talent and the WWF getting whomever they want, further making it seem like the NWA is a Triple-A league and Triple-A doesn’t play in big league cities. Others will argue that since they hadn't been with the NWA for several months that them showing up on Titan television imminently will have no effect on the NWA"
"Truthfully, the departure of Rhodes was neccessary and in the long run was the best thing for the NWA. As for Windham, while he is one of the best workers in the business and had a great heel persona, there's no indication he was any kind of a draw (actually, there's no indication anyone in the NWA is that much of a draw right now, however)."
"This all brings us up to the biggest question of the week, the status of Mike Rotunda. Now Rotunda isn't about to be a superstar with either group. However, he does have a one-year contract signed with the NWA and several Titan sources have either said he's definitely in, or is pretty sure of coming in. While Titan is claiming to have him, Rotunda made all his NWA dates over this past weekend and has yet to give notice or anything of the sort"
"Whether Rotunda stays or goes isn't of major consequence on the surface, since he's not a headliner or a draw nor will he be for whichever group he winds up working for. However, if a wrestler under contract with another group, particularly the NWA, tries to work for the WWF, one wonders how TBS will react. These contracts with guaranteed money that the NWA has signed its top guys to are there primarily to prevent guys from leaving to Titan and embarrassing the NWA. The NWA, should Rotunda leave, may not feel Rotunda is worth the hassle of trying to prove the point, or they make think that it is neccessary to prove the validity of the contract to dissuade others, who may be more important, from following suit"
"Danny Spivey vs. Sid Vicious (this is subject to change because it isn't certain whether Vicious will be a face or heel yet but he is coming in full-time starting 6/14)"
"Debut of the Ebony Experience (Butch Reed & Ron Simmons managed by Teddy Long)"
"5/27 in St. Petersburg was scheduled to be Dusty Rhodes vs. Terry Funk in a chain match however that match couldn't take place for political reasons as the NWA didn't want Funk to do the job in the first place, but it became even more important for him not to when Dusty went with Titan because it was a Titan wrestler beating the NWA's top heel if that would have taken place. Plus, there was concern over an "accidental" injury which would have destroyed all of the NWA's summer plans"
"Finally, on the latest in rumors and always asked questions: 1) Paul Orndorff is still alive and runs a chain of bowling alleys in Georgia; 2) Lex Luger is still alive (how this rumor continues to spread that Luger died is incredible since they talk about him and show him weekly on NWA television); 3) Elizabeth is not pregnant—she's taking time off to start marketing the new perfume in the fail; 4) Randy Savage and Elizabeth are married; 5) Hulk Hogan and Brutus Beefcake are married, but not to each other, and they're not brothers either; 6) Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo are brothers, but won't be forming a tag team or acknowledged as brothers in the WWF because the "characters" of Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo aren't brothers. Oh, and the characters of Randy Savage and The Lovely Elizabeth are not married, either. Maybe the problem is that the character of Paul Orndorff really is dead?"
"There is a ton of heat among the WWF wrestlers, particularly those who formerly worked in the NWA and old UWF, over the arrival of Dusty Rhodes, so much so that a memo was sent out to wrestlers to treat Dusty with respect and for there to be no problems. Several guys are claiming they are going to do this and that to Dusty when he comes in but it's not like it's going to happen"
"We were quite surprised to see Piper working in Canada this weekend. After his ten-day WWF tour became a three-day tour, he restarted negotiations with the NWA and told Jim Herd that he wouldn't be working for Titan any longer, and presto, who does he work for the very next week? My guess is that Piper never seriously wanted to work for the NWA, but uses them for negotiating leverage to get a better deal with Titan"
"Lex Luger regained the U.S. title from Michael Hayes in Bluefield using the trunks to win. I believe this match airs on the weekend of the 10th of June. Luger also started his heel turn by having a babyface match against Steven Casey and when Casey "injured his knee," Luger viciously attacked the knee"
"Bob Orton was fired after a dispute in Atlanta. The committee wanted Orton to do the job in the Midnight Express vs. Orton & Butch Reed match which airs this coming Saturday on TBS. Orton said he'd do it but only if the finish saw Orton have Bobby Eaton up in the superplex while the ref is distracted by Jim Cornette and Teddy Long and Dick Murdoch comes out of the back and trips Orton so Eaton falls on top for the pin. The committee wanted Orton to get pinned cleanly as a way to get the Express back on track. They were talking of pulling Orton out of the match and claiming his plane was late and putting in a sub partner, however Orton went out and did an interview and walked around (an old Brody trick to make sure fans know you are there so the promotion can't blame you for the no-show) so the crowd saw him"
"What happened was they had Orton & Reed come in, then Murdoch ran in and he and Orton brawled out of the building and Reed teamed with The Raider, who naturally did the job, so the Midnights could advance in the tourney. Orton was then fired since in the NWA contracts it specifically says that failing to follow the orders of the bookers is a firing offense, although Orton is talking of suing over it"
"Eddie Gilbert blew out his knee in Bluefield, WV in a match with Jack Victory. Gilbert is on crutches as I write this but he's claiming he'll be back in action within three weeks. Gilbert will feud with the Great Muta since Muta blew green mist in Missy Hyatt's eyes. On TV they were saying Gilbert was "on a cruise" for two reasons—one of which may involve a long-range angle although this may not happen; but more so because with Flair and Rick Steiner injured, they felt having another face hurt would be overkill"
"Steve Williams will return from Japan as a babyface and they did a phantom turn and phantom angle saying that Sullivan paid Terry Gordy to hit Williams with a tire iron while both were in Japan (and are acknowledging that they work for different promotions and weren't booked in the same city while in Japan)"
"On the Greensboro TV that aired this past weekend, they announced a Freebirds vs. Midnight Express match as being for the World tag team title even though the tournament doesn't end until the 14th"
"TBS on 5/20 drew a 2.3 rating (peaking at a 2.5 from 11:30 to 11:45 p.m. Eastern for Freebirds vs. Road Warriors) which, if you consider the Braves going 13 innings and a displaced time slot, is a great rating as it's a huge improvement of what these post-Braves shows had been drawing (1.6 to 1.8)"
"5/27 in Baltimore drew about 5,500 fans and 543,000 while 5/28 in Chicago drew 2,533 fans ($22,000). The former isn't bad, all things considered. The latter is a disaster although there is a genuine legit excuse—the NWA's TV was canceled both the Saturday and Sunday of one week back (which they didn't know about in advance as stations don't inform companies of this nowadays like they used to) and again the Sunday of the card while on the Saturday the show did air, but two hours later then it was normally scheduled"
June 12, 89
"As for Mike Rotunda, the word from the NWA side is that he's going to be staying. He hasn't missed any scheduled dates and has several months left on his contract. While he was said to be unhappy about the break-up of the Varsity Club, supposedly whatever problems have been smoothed over"
"The Saturday show, which was back in its regular 7:05 p.m. Eastern time slot, drew a 1.6 rating, which is by far the lowest rating wrestling has ever drawn in that time period in the history of TBS. In fact, it's a full half point lower than the previous low. The Sunday NWA Main Event show, which hasn’t had its time changed around like the Saturday show, fell to a 1.5, which I also believe is a record low, or if not, very close to one"
"Starting in two weeks, the Saturday TBS show will move back to its familiar 6:05 p.m. Eastern slot and won’t be bounced around anymore"
"The main event on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend (Muta vs. Ricky Santana) is hardly something that would make people change plans and stay home for, but two weeks earlier after the Nashville show, they aired Luger vs. Hayes from Nashville (and heavily hyped that they were) plus highlights of the Flair vs. Steamboat match and drew a poor rating"
"Whether the NWA likes to admit this or not, during a time period when Titan gets a ton of hype, as it has the last few weeks because of the movie, it makes the public believe even stronger that the WWF is pro wrestling. If the WWF is wrestling, whatever the NWA does, whether it be actually better in the ring or not, comes across as second rate wrestling"
"The NWA was in California from June 1st through 3rd running shows in Oakland, Stockton and Fresno respectively. The Oakland show drew 1,243 paid and $12,500; Stockton drew 1,047 paid and $10,000 and Fresno drew an $11,000 gate"
"Road Warriors and Samoan Swat Team went to a double count out in 2:52 and after which they brawled to the back. The Samoans sold a lot less than normal since all their hometown buddies and family were in the crowd and they wanted to act like the Road Warriors, so the match itself, or what was there of it, wasn't as good as in some cities. Either way, it's just too short and the fans were pretty p.o.'d that it was over so quickly"
"Muta doesn't do his real daredevil stuff without TV cameras because he wants to save his knees"
"You can come up with your own analysis as to why, but once again, at least in this part of the country, the NWA "plays" better live in medium-sized cities than in the big markets. I'm not talking about crowd size, I'm talking crowd reaction. Ironically, Titan is the opposite around here, "playing" well in the big arenas but generally working boring shows when they run spot towns"
"In time, the Dynamic Dudes will get over. Out here the crowds always booed the Rock & Roll Express and Fantastics and I figured they'd boo the Dudes as well, but they were fairly well received, despite the lack of women in the crowds in this part of the country. It appears that unlike the other two teams, these guys don't offend the male fans and still seem to be able to attract the kids and girls' attention"
"Scott Steiner is a monster in person. Looks a lot bigger live than on television. So does Muta, but the younger Steiner is actually bigger than his brother, and in fact is so pumped up he's bigger than Road Warrior Hawk and more pumped up than Luger (although Luger is a lot taller). He's got the right look to him, but needs a tan to make him look better on television"
"The bright lights wash out the "cuts" on non-tanned people which is why all the Titan stars have such deep tans. Another guy whose "look" is detracted for the same reason is Terry Funk. On TV he looks washed out physically when he's actually in great condition, but it's because without a tan, his older skin looks aged instead of tight even though he's in lean shape"
"If they develop a character for Scott Steiner besides just being Rick's younger brother, he's got a lot of potential because even though he's still green in some ways, he's a great athlete who can do good stuff in the ring"
"TBS is claiming that Barry Windham will be sued since he was given a $25,000 signing bonus and then never fulfilled the terms of his contract"
"WWF isn't returning until September, probably in protest of the Boston Gardens giving the NWA the date in July"
"5/30 in Denver drew 600 fans and $7,000 as Dudes beat Victory & Raider, Reed pinned Ross, Murdoch pinned Irwin, Steve Williams pinned Rotunda, Muta pinned Scott Steiner, Road Warriors double count out SST in 2:39 and Luger beat Hayes in a Bad Street match. 5/31 in Reno drew just 200 fans with the same results. Told both Denver and Reno were terrible shows and in Reno the card was at a Livestock Exposition Center with a dirt arena floor with the dust flying everywhere"
"An interesting note for those of you who have seen the interview with Dr. Joseph Estwanik of Charlotte about Flair's injury. The injury Estwanik was talking about, a pinched nerve which severely weakened one arm is actually a legitimate injury that Flair suffered back in 1987 and it was more than one year before Flair could actually lift any kind of heavy weights with his upper body, although I think he only missed something like a week's worth of matches"
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Post by DSR on Mar 19, 2021 23:23:50 GMT -5
Yeah, about that...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2021 3:25:31 GMT -5
June 19, 89
"Apparently the pay scale with Titan has been significantly lowered since Wrestlemania, and you can pick which of these two reasons as the legit one although there is legitimateness in both: 1) Overall gates are down from the first three months when both Hogan and Savage could draw big houses on the same night and now the only big houses are when Hogan works; 2) Titan no longer feels that the NWA is a viable threat as far as taking talent so they can pay lower since the wrestlers have no alternative to making comparable money (with the exception of a very few who can work Japan like Owen Hart) since it is not a secret that the NWA has had the chance to get a few mainline Titan stars and TBS has chosen to take the attitude that they will develop their own stars"
"Danny Spivey pinned Sting in 7:39 (you read that result correctly)....Apparently Spivey was upset about the prospect of putting Sting over and even selling much for him since he believes himself to be a foreign "monster" in Japan like Brody was. Sting on the other hand didn't seem to mind and since Spivey is a regular in Japan and it is very difficult for Baba to even book Sting due to his NWA contract that basically explains the illogical result. Still, no matter how you slice it, Spivey doesn't have the charisma to be a major star and Sting certainly does, whether in the U.S. or Japan"
"Mike Rotunda is now being called Captain Mike Rotunda and still teaming with Kevin Sullivan, but they are no longer referred to as the Varsity Club. Rotunda will be staying here and honoring his contract and the WWF really didn't want to mess with a wrestler who had a valid contract with a competitor for legal reasons"
"Scott Hall and Sid Vicious worked dark matches at the TBS tapings on 6/7 (the bulk of which aired this past Saturday), Vicious has been getting over great at the house shows"
"Danny Spivey & Sid Vicious will be working as a heel tag team managed by Gary Hart"
"The latest in announcer musical chairs has Jim Cornette & Jim Ross set for the Friday TBS show which debuts in two weeks; Ross & Michael Hayes on Saturday; Ross replacing Lance Russell working with Paul E. Dangerously on Sunday TBS; the syndicated NWA Main Event will still have Russell & Paul E.; NWA Pro will have Russell & Bob Caudle and Worldwide will have two new announcers"
"Ken Resnick got a try-out as an announcer"
"The Ebony Experience probably didn't debut on the Clash as Ron Simmons didn't want to be involved in the team because he didn't like the name which caused some heat and Simmons may have lost his push. NWA was looking at bringing in Larry Cameron to team with Butch Reed but Cameron is a long way from being ready for this level"
"I've heard conflicting stories on this but Tommy Rich is either very close to coming in (as a babyface believe it or not) or is already agreed to be coming in. Rich wanted in and I believe they wanted him to drop his weight back down and get into condition before letting him come in"
"All Dragon Shi matches end in count outs since the rules are both guys start at the top rope and fight to get a hickory switch and then can use it and the object is to knock your foe out of the ring for a 10 count which of course has never been explained well enough on television that any fan understands it"
"6/11 at the Silverdome in Pontiac, MI was one of the all-time disasters of the year drawing 878 paid in the 85,000 seat building which may have been the smallest crowd for any event ever in the Silverdome"
"This weekend’s TBS show will be taped on Thursday night in Augusta, GA because so many angles are scheduled to be shot in Fort Bragg, NC so it'll make the show current"
June 26, 89 (Scan missing page 2 which has most of the Clash recap)
"The Clash did a 3.8 rating and a 6.6 share, which means it was viewed in 1.9 million homes. This was the lowest rated Clash show to date, and this has to be quite disappointing since the NWA was hoping for a 5 rating from the show. The show was well hyped on both TBS shows, particularly in the last weekend leading to the show. Both CNN and Headline News along with TBS were running regular spots for the special all over the place over the last few days. TV Guide had a full-page ad, although the ad didn't run nationally but had a lot of exposure, plus USA Today had a quarter-page ad in the sports section"
"Things aren't looking up at all for the NWA. They are not regaining the "old" fans who have been slowly but surely slipping away since the summer of 1987, but aren't even retaining the regulars who lasted through nearly two bad years to get to this point. Why? Probably there are dozens of reasons, and maybe a specific reason for each person who quit watching. Some have to do with changes. Some have to do with angles. Some have to do with personnel"
"The introduction of the Ding Dongs was probably the worst thing a major promotion has over done in a wrestling ring, and that flop dragged the entire show down."
"It ruined a lot of the effect of the finals of a World tag team tournament when the building, which was heated and looked great early in the show, suddenly resembled a half-empty high school gym in the Carolinas"
"Funk was beating on Steamboat after the match when in runs Lex Luger with a chair. At this point, the crowd is going crazy chanting "Luger, Luger, Luger." The next few moments would tell the story of whether Lex Luger was going to make it all the way as a pro wrestler instead of just getting by with his physique. While some may criticize what happened next as being too similar to the Flair-Funk angle on the last big show, that is a comment on whether or not the angle should have been done. But it was going to be done, and the actual execution by Luger and Steamboat was a thing of beauty"
"The building wasn't air conditioned, and in fact, had no fans (the fans that blow air, not that fill empty seats) so those inside estimated the temperature, with the TV lights, at at least 120 degrees (it was exactly 100 degrees outside when the show started and 80 degrees when it ended at 11 p.m.). Jim Ross and Bob Caudle looked like they were about to pass out at any moment"
"Since so many people are asking why they see all these Pillman videos but never actually see him wrestle, here's the real scoop. You see, a few weeks back they taught Pillman how to fly a helicopter, as you've all seen in the music video. The problem is, they never taught him how to land the thing, so he's still flying somewhere over Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta the last I've heard"
"Jim Ross visited Flair at his home and they did an out of character low-key interview. This thing is drawing praise far and wide from almost everyone in the industry and taken all by itself, I'd agree. But here is the problem. We had just seen Norman and the Ding Dongs do a clown show, and now all of a sudden we are asked to treat this as ultra-serious athletics. The contradiction was too strong"
"On the syndicated TV and the TBS show the previous Saturday, or just four days before this card, we all saw Missy Hyatt get sprayed in the eyes and face by Muta's mist and her screaming in agony. This was the reason for Eddie Gilbert's feud with Muta, the dastardly act Muta did to Missy. Unfortunately, four days later, first we see Missy Hyatt doing the military maneuvers and then she comes to ringside with the Steiners looking if anything, better than ever. No signs at all of the attack just four days earlier. Let's face it, if that's what happens when Muta sprays the mist in a girl's face, I'll bet every guy reading this newsletter would like their wife or girlfriend to get sprayed if they would come out looking like that"
"What about Terry Funk? The angle in Nashville was great. He's doing the best interviews in wrestling right now. But he was portrayed on this show as the No. 10 contender, which is a journeyman position, and then failed to beat the No. 1 contender. For this to do the business they want, not only does the revenge factor need to be there, but there has to be enough of a question as to whether Funk can beat Flair, and even though the match with Steamboat was excellently worked, any fan watching would not have a question that Flair's ultimate challenge is Lex Luger, and not Terry Funk."
"There is nothing wrong with Luger being so hot, and he's going to draw money this fall with Flair provided there isn't a major collapse before that time, but for a PPV show to draw, the match being hyped has to be considered by the fans as the ultimate confrontation (for that moment)"
"My feeling is that if they weren't going to go all the way with Funk and make him the super heel, which means he wins everything cleanly all the way to Flair (and if they didn't want to beat Steamboat, which is understandable, then Funk should have wrestled someone else on this show and blitzed them), then why did they sacrifice all these weeks of TV ratings and house show revenue by keeping Flair on the sidelines?"
"Anyway, the Luger turn was great and Luger vs. Flair is going to draw big money. After Luger destroyed Steamboat, Funk should have snuck in and delivered a piledriver to Steamboat or something just so he did the last dastardly act as he's got to be lead heel at least until July 23rd. Right now they need to really do an awful lot right regarding Funk and Flair over the next month to put the ultimate sizzle into Funk that is needed."
"I'm very sorry to report that this past Wednesday night, Mandy Koloff died in her sleep at 26. As many of you know, Mandy is the wife of Nikita Koloff and had been battling Hodgkin's Disease for nearly two years. She had taken a turn for the worst just a few weeks back and her illness is the primary reason why Nikita Koloff has been out of the wrestling mainstream this year"
"Tommy Rich is scheduled to come in once he gets in acceptable physical condition"
"Tom Zenk is scheduled for a mid-September start"
"Typical NWA. TBS sent 200 posters to Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis for their show this past Sunday night. Listed as the main event was Sting vs. "Terry Fox." "
"Ron Simmons didn't appear on Wednesday night to team with Butch Reed for the debut of Teddy Long's "Ebony Experience" tag team and it appeared Simmons was going to be fading away from the NWA, but on Friday night in Johnstown, PA, the two appeared as a tag team so I guess Simmons re-considered"
"Sid Vicious debuted on the NWA Pro show this weekend and dropped jobber Dwayne Bruce over the top rope kidney first onto concrete"
"The Ding Dongs appeared again in Augusta, GA on 6/15 and were to be on the TBS show except the first 15 minutes were pre-empted because the track meet went long"
"Jerry Lawler supposed to meet with NWA about working Memphis bash show"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2021 3:27:55 GMT -5
July 3, 89
"The NWA opened its Bash tour on Thursday night at the Capital Centre and followed it up with shows in New Haven, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh before the weekend was out. The shows all did decent business. You can call it good taken in the context that there is no Ric Flair on these shows and in comparison to the crowds the NWA has been drawing all year. You can call it bad in comparison with the Bash crowds last year, but that really isn't fair since so much damage has been done to the NWA and you have to learn to walk before you can run and right now the promotion is just learning to walk"
"The Capital Centre card drew a $50,000 house, with New Haven drawing $35,000 the next night (with very limited walk-up business since Titan ran a Hogan vs. Savage match in nearby Hartford the night before which drew a $157,000 house), Philadelphia drawing approximately $50,000 on Saturday and Pittsburgh drawing slightly less than that on Sunday"
"The NWA also debuted its Friday night prime time wrestling show, which didn't quite make prime time its first week since the Atlanta Braves game went long, as it always seems to do when wrestling scheduling is involved. The first show contained two notable surprises, one of which was the return of Gordon Solie to TBS and the other was the acknowledgment of other promotions during Solie's segment"
"Solie read off brief wrestling headlines of the past week, concentrating on the NWA and in particular the Lex Luger turn, but he also mentioned brief items on World Class, the Florida promotion (which Solie is heavily involved with) and the WWF, with a mention of the movie "No Holds Barred" which some took as a knock of the movie (saying it had mixed reviews and was falling in the ratings but still in the top 10), others took as a plug"
"As everyone probably knows, it violates all sorts of wrestling tradition to mention any other promotion to begin with, particularly when all the promotions mentioned in some form or fashion are competitors. I'm told this was Jim Herd's idea, and it was the leading topic of conversation this weekend with most calling not particularly understanding why it was done, but kind of liking it anyway"
"The Ding Dongs are going to work a date in August in Hong Kong against some wrestler over there called King Kong. There have been a lot of people of late who have been saying that the stuff the NWA has been doing of late doesn't have any rhyme or reason, but at least now it has rhyme"
"For those of you who have attended Bash shows, the reason they've shot angles during the Battle Royals where Terry Funk attacks Sting with the branding iron and Sting winds up carried out on a stretcher and is unable to wrestle his scheduled singles match later on is because for the time being, the NWA is holding Funk out of action. Funk fractured his sacrum in the lower back this past Monday in Macon, GA and although he was willing to work his scheduled matches with Sting with the injury, TBS felt he should sit it out and let the injury heel, rather than risk aggravating the injury and threatening the PPV main event"
"Lawler met with the NWA this past Monday in Atlanta but no deal was reached although the door was left open for more discussion. Things that were discussed was an attempt by the NWA to use Lawler on a one-shot basis when it runs a card in July in Memphis in the main event against Terry Funk (currently the main event is scheduled as Funk vs. Eddie Gilbert and the advance for the show is poor, although Memphis is not an advance town) or even the possibility of the NWA using the Memphis circuit as a sort of minor league feeder system where it can send young wrestlers who need more seasoning and veterans who no longer can make it as headliners nationally but can help teach the younger wrestlers. But thus far nothing concrete has come from either of those ideas"
"I think everyone is pretty well convinced that ultimately it is Flair vs. Luger that is going to be the big money match in the NWA"
"It was announced this past Saturday night on AWA TV that Wahoo McDaniel has retired from pro wrestling due to an eye injury suffered against Mike Enos & Wayne Bloom, although in reality Wahoo has taken the job as a road manager in the NWA. It is said that Wahoo still wants to wrestle in the NWA but management wants him strictly as a road manager"
"The best matches every night have been the six-man tag matches with the Freebirds and the Lex Luger vs. Ricky Steamboat main events"
"Scott Steiner pops everyone with this sequence where he does a unique type of backward suplex onto all three Freebirds in succession"
"Luger gets the biggest crowd pop in every arena and it is a mixed, reaction although in many cities he got a stronger face reaction than Steamboat. I hope they don't panic because Luger is their only legitimately hot property right now except for Flair upon his return as a face. Remember, Flair as a heel always was cheered by 30 to 50 percent of the crowd when he came out for his matches but until the recent destruction period, he also was a big draw"
"Last week in Center Stage when they did the angle where Muta blew red mist (to look like blood as they aren't allowed to use blood on TV) onto Gilbert's face, the crowd chanted, "Muta, Muta, Muta" after the TV cameras were off"
"The idea of the Ebony Experience has been dropped since Ron Simmons didn't want to do it (and I don't expect he'll be pushed much because of it) and Butch Reed is on some sort of a suspension. Don't know the exact deal with Reed, but he was taken off all bookings through the end of July because he didn't sign his contract yet"
"Tommy Rich debuted this past week at all three TV tapings and since they were in Georgia, Rich got over very strong. He's dropped a lot of weight as he's been jogging and eating mainly a tuna diet (yeech) but still has a ways to go to get where they want him, but he should be in full-time in about a week or two"
"Ken Resnick won't be coming in as an announcer so they are still looking for one or two new announcers. Resnick has a full-time job with a Twin Cities car dealership and didn't want to give it up, thus couldn't devote the necessary time that TBS wanted him for"
"NWA had a big meeting on Monday night before the taping in Macon with Jim Herd where it was stressed that everyone who is asked to do a job had better do the job or they would be fired. There was a problem with one of the leading wrestlers last weekend"
"Teddy Long getting rave reviews everywhere"
July 10, 89
"The Road Warriors did a job Sunday night at the Omni for the Samoan Swat Team, as in 1-2-3, when Samu used Paul E. Dangerously's phone on Animal and got the pin. It's not like that's an every day occurrence and it surprised the heck out of everyone in the building. Even though the Road Warriors did gimmick jobs (the fast three count in New Orleans and the AWA tag title loss a few years back when half the world interfered), this was the closest thing to a loss the duo has done since probably around the summer of 1984 when they kind of stopped doing those type of things"
"For this past week’s Bash schedule, the NWA did a reported $33,000 in Raleigh on Monday; $30,000 in Greenville on Tuesday; $20,000 in Greensboro on Wednesday (all things considered, even considering the fact it was on a Wednesday and there was no Ric Flair, that is still terrible) and they were in Hampton, VA and Salisbury, MD on Thursday and Friday (no reports from either spot), Charlotte on Saturday did about $50,000 and the Omni on Sunday night did about 6,800 fans"
"Even though most folks who know the Greensboro situation told me in advance it was going to bomb, I really am surprised even on a Wednesday (historically, Greensboro has never drawn except on weekend dates) with that loaded of a line-up that they wouldn't draw better than that."
"Depending upon who you believe, the company World Championship Wrestling is said to be losing $25,000 to $30,000 daily. It has between 35 and 40 touring wrestlers, five managers, one valet, a ref or two and even a television announcer (to do the 900 number fall-by-falls on most house shows) on the road daily. Approximately 25 of the wrestlers are under contract for between $75,000 and a reported $550,000 per year. Costs of taping so many television shows are high"
"Even if World Championship Wrestling is losing money on paper, that can be deceiving. TBS, which owns WCW, is deriving millions of dollars annually in advertising income from its various pro wrestling shows. The wrestling shows still do better in their time slots than the "average" programming does on the station. TBS runs four hours weekly of what is now decently rated programming, which has a track record of being some of its highest rated programming. They run quarterly specials which bring in several hundred thousand dollars apiece in ad revenue, and TBS' share of the Nashville PPV show, for example, still should have been in the neighborhood of $750,000"
"In recent weeks, I've noticed what appears to be a greater commitment from TBS in regards to wrestling. They've given the wrestling company an additional hour, on Friday nights. They have given the Saturday show a stable time period which it has desperately been needing. The number of plugs during TBS programming for the wrestling shows is larger than ever before, and they group the wrestling show as part of "Super Sports Saturday," which is not the snide, snicker image other stations which do wrestling programming, like ESPN for example, have chosen to take"
"Everyone knows Hulk Hogan. Most everyone knows Zeus, Randy Savage, Elizabeth, Andre the Giant and the Ultimate Warrior in that age group. Almost everyone also knows there is an NWA, knows Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Lex Luger and the Road Warriors. I can guarantee and this is in California, where if anything, TBS is weak, NWA syndication is weak, that Flair still has more name recognition than all but the top three or four WWF wrestlers. However, people don't talk about Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk. Nobody does. People do talk about Jimmy Snuka vs. Honkeytonk Man. They know the NWA exists. They know the major names. But it's not the major league"
"The most asked question about Ric Flair or Lex Luger is not about Flair's feud with Funk or Luger's feud with Rick Steamboat, but when will Flair, Luger, Road Warriors, whomever, go to the WWF? Nobody ever asks when Randy Savage will go to the NWA? That's why the losses of Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson, and now with Barry Windham and Dusty Rhodes being on Titan's television, have been more damaging to the NWA than a press conference that was a little flat, or a screw-job ending of a big match, or the Ding Dongs on a TV special. The latter things get hardcore fans mad, but they will remain fans"
"In 1984, when Vince made his big push, he didn't establish one star on his own. He raided every star he could get his hands on. It wasn't until Vince had established himself as major league in the new areas of the country that had never seen Titan before the new era, that Vince was able to establish his own creations like Beefcake and Honkeytonk Man as stars"
"What the NWA needs to do immediately is decide what they want to be, both in terms of product as we've discussed in the past, but realistically in terms of whether they want to be major league and fight the big war, taking the huge money risks it'll take, or forget about being major league, forget about PPV, and just provide cheap programming with very little (comparatively) risks but no chances of any big rewards financially, either"
"Last Saturday a friend of mine called up to tell me that his brother, who had attended a party on Friday night and wound up passed out on the couch, had this horrible nightmare. He dreamed he was watching wrestling on TBS when all of a sudden Gordon Solie was on, and he was talking about Hulk Hogan and No Holds Barred. Anyway, it wasn't a nightmare. TBS replays the "Power Hour" where Solie was on talking about Hulk Hogan and No Holds Barred last week at 4:15 a.m. here on the West Coast"
"NWA is close to closing up the deal to move the WPIX (Ch. 11) time slot in New York to 9 a.m. on Saturdays from its middle of the night VCR only slot in September. Most likely if that happens they'll start to promote live shows again in New York in November"
"Sting and Steamboat were left in the Battle Royal and they went at it for about five hot minutes before they both went out together and split the money and they did the Funk angle afterwards"
"A local cable channel was advertising Ric Flair's return on the 7/23 PPV show one week before the press conference and the first NWA Friday show inadvertently in one of the matches had commentary announcing Flair vs. Funk eight days before the press conference. Mistakes, yes, but don't say Vince wouldn't have done it. He was advertising "Explosion of the Megapowers: Hogan vs. Savage" in Atlantic City one week before the NBC special where they did the break-up"
"The PPV commercial mentions a War Games, but no participants (they show film of Warriors, SST, Midnight and Birds but don't actually mention anyone by name and the average fan doesn't read the Observer and realize that the guys they are showing are in the matchup), Flair vs. Funk and says also appearing are Sting, Muta, Steamboat and Luger without mentioning actual matches. Hey, these guys "appear" for free three times weekly on television"
"Crowd got into Norman—wears one tennis shoe and one wrestling boot in ring, lots of ringside fans brought keys to wave at him— this gimmick seems to be working—I think reaction initially wouldn't have been so negative if it hadn't been for the Ding Dongs fiasco earlier and the combination of the two made the Clash seem like a clown show"
"Skyscrapers as a name sounds way too much like Twin Towers and lots of people are feeling it's a rip-off. You know they are headed for a Road Warrior showdown in the winter"
"Everyone loves Scott Steiner's blockbuster suplex. Hiroshi Hase in Japan does the same move and holds the bridge all the way over. Crowd pops whenever he does the thing with Terry Gordy"
July 17, 89
"The showing of wrestling highlights between games of Braves doubleheaders was a move that shows that at this point, wrestling has become a major part of the TBS operation. Since then, we've seen wrestler Michael Hayes doing a commercial for Night Tracks (the Friday night rock video show on TBS), seen 15 minute special segments taped and aired at various times before and after baseball games giving updates on the NWA scene and hyping the PPV show; we've seen wrestling grouped in with the other legitimate sports such as baseball and track in the TBS Sports Saturday line-up on promos; and throughout this month, NWA babyfaces Ric Flair, Road Warriors, Sting and Rick Steiner will be taping national ads for St. Louis-based Kangaroo Athletic Wear"
"Terry Funk has been back in action this past week working with Sting. He only takes one bump during the match but the matches are still good"
"On Worldwide Wrestling they kept plugging that after the Ranger Ross vs. Luger match they would air a Ric Flair workout video and have an interview with Rick Steamboat. Well, the show ended, and even though both were plugged at least three times, neither was on the show"
"Luger's mannerisms as a heel, particularly in the match with Ross, were just incredible. It's funny that half the crowd still cheers him and I don't think that'll ever really change but that sneer and arrogance is awesome"
"TV ratings over the July 4th weekend were encouraging: World Championship Wrestling on Saturday did a 2.2 rating and 6.1 share (best share for the Saturday show since December—rating, despite being over the Holiday weekend, was up from the past several weeks), NWA Main Event headlined by Murdoch & Ranger Ross vs. Militia drew a 2.4, the between games NWA Update show on Friday night drew a 2.1 rating which ironically was a better rating than either baseball game drew, and the Power Hour drew 1.7 starting at 11 p.m. Eastern time"
"Scott Steiner's blockbuster suplex on the Bounty Hunter on Friday, even though their actual match was horrible, the finishing move was great"
"Butch Reed appears to be history"
"The NWA canceled the 7/9 Bash at Brown University in Providence, RI due to no advance"
"The NWA shot a major angle this past Thursday night in Marietta, GA which is scheduled for airing this coming Friday night (July 14th) on the Power Hour on TBS. It was scheduled as a Road Warriors vs. Samoan Swat Team cage match, however the SST didn't show up as the story goes and Jimmy Garvin & Terry Gordy took the cage match instead. As the match progresses with the Warriors gaining the upper hand, Michael Hayes attacks ref Tommy Young, who was guarding the door outside the ring, and gets the keys to the cage from him and opens the door and the Samoans come in as well. The whole group then proceeds to handcuff Animal to the ring ropes and does a heavy juice number on Hawk, finishing up with a stretcher job"
"Anyone who has followed the history of TBS, CNN and other Turner ventures has seen that things never looked good in the beginning but they have survived and become institutions. Of course, we could bring up the Atlanta Braves"
"Entertainment Tonight will be doing a feature on the wrestling war, Ted Turner vs. Vince McMahon scheduled for a July 17th air date. It'll be interesting to see how they put the feature together since Titan has steadfastly refused to cooperate with any story that would make it seem like any other organizations exist in pro wrestling"
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Post by James Fabiano on Mar 21, 2021 3:49:45 GMT -5
Plans for the Ebony Experience may be...how shall I put this...doomed.
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Post by cornettesracket on Mar 21, 2021 4:45:51 GMT -5
878 in the silverdome. Jesus that’s bad.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2021 4:46:00 GMT -5
Anyone know what Meltzer is referring to when talking about Steiner's 'blockbuster' suplex? Given hes talking about Hase holding the bridge I'm assuming a Northern Lights, or possibly a Dragon suplex?
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Mozenrath
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Foppery and Whim
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Post by Mozenrath on Mar 21, 2021 5:00:21 GMT -5
His knees lasted longer than many, but obviously, time and gravity always win.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2021 7:34:00 GMT -5
Anyone know what Meltzer is referring to when talking about Steiner's 'blockbuster' suplex? Given hes talking about Hase holding the bridge I'm assuming a Northern Lights, or possibly a Dragon suplex?
It's at 8:49
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