Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2021 8:14:21 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
Thanks! And good grief he just spikes himself on the head doing that
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SAJ Forth
Wade Wilson
Jamaican WCF Crazy!
Half Man-Half Amazing
Posts: 27,214
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Post by SAJ Forth on Mar 21, 2021 16:26:32 GMT -5
Am enjoying these. Occasionally laughed with some entries.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2021 4:14:18 GMT -5
July 24, 89
"The last time the NWA did a Pay-Per-View show, back on May 7th in Nashville, it's generally regarded as the best PPV show in the four-plus years that wrestling events have gone nationally via this somewhat new technology, it also drew the lowest buy rate of any national PPV show with the exception of the AWA's Superclash show last December"
"They spent so much time trying to get Terry Funk over as "crazy" that they didn't develop him as a legitimate contender for the title. While there will be tons of heat in the match to see Ric Flair return as a babyface, it doesn't seem like there is a question in anyone's mind over whether or not Flair will actually lose the title. And even though the interviews on both sides have been strong the past three weeks, my own feeling is that July 1st was too late to announce the main event for a PPV show that is three weeks later"
"On television this weekend, or just one week before showtime, we see Rick Steamboat doing interviews challenging Lex Luger to a no DQ match and Luger not accepting. That's fine, if the card is a month away, not a week away. The entire card should have been finalized at least three weeks ahead and had all the stips down so they had a few weeks to hammer them home, not adding stips at the last minute"
"The TV commercials list the War Games match, without identifying who is in the War Games match (if you watch the TV you will know if you pay close attention, but the participants are still vague in many people's minds) and they are also assuming more knowledge of what a War Games is than a lot of casual fans actually have— the actual concept of two men starting, the coin flip that the heels always win, the 2-on-1, 3-on-2 for the two minute intervals and finally the winning only via submission are points that haven't been hammered into the viewers' head this year as they were two years ago when the first War Games in Atlanta and Miami drew those huge gates"
"The TV commercials that aired all weekend still just listed Sting, Muta, Steamboat and Luger as "also appearing" rather than list their matches and explain the angles and stips for them. You can see those guys all "just appear" on television for free several times each weekend. It's the matches that sell the show (that is, if at least people are watching the shows to begin with)."
"The saddest part of all this is that this entire line-up, for the most part, was finalized several weeks back, but the line-up itself isn't being sold to the public. On the TV commercials that I saw during baseball, they didn't even mention the Flair vs. Funk match, just that Turner Home Entertainment was doing a PPV this Sunday. Nobody cares if Turner Home Entertainment is doing a PPV. They only care if there is a match, or preferably a few matches, that they desperately want to see enough to spend $15 to watch them at home"
"7/14 in Baltimore at the Arena drew a sellout 14,000 fans as Randy Savage beat Hulk Hogan via count out....This was the WWF's first show in Baltimore since October and this was the closest date to 7/23 that the Arena would let them book a show so this show was loaded up primarily because of the NWA PPV event, even though as Vince would say, they aren't competition"
"Marvin Hagler was at the NWA show in Boston and Teddy Long had to hold Norman back and they played quite a bit to Hagler"
"7/10 in Springfield, MA drew 1,000 (the only television promoting the show was based in Hartford, CT and it only had two weeks promotion time since it had been promoting the New Haven Bash for weeks before that)"
"Skyscrapers are getting a huge push on TV and even though they are heels, they are being cheered in every arena"
"Iron Sheik will be returning against everyone's wishes. Apparently the attorneys at TBS felt that Sheik had a legit gripe in saying he was unfairly fired, so they are going to bring him back as a jobber since George Scott had signed him to a one-year contract"
"7/16 in Fort Worth drew 2,700 for a card in which every match advertised but one didn't take place as they switched it to a TV taping. Just about all squashes with no new angles. Best matches saw Gordy double count out with Williams in which Gordy was heavily cheered although Williams got the best pop on the card when he did a press-slam and Funk pinned Tommy Rich. No-shows were Muta (resting up for the PPV), Sting (given time off to move), Johnny Ace (broken cheekbone suffered in Memphis) plus Luger, Warriors, Flair and Steamboat weren't booked on the card so it was a watered-down show and Gilbert wasn't booked either but was there doing booking"
July 31, 89
"BALTIMORE BASH, Thumbs Up: 214 (97.7 percent), Thumbs Down: 5 (2.3 percent)"
"As I write this, I've yet to watch the televised version of the card but will be watching it later in the week. I attended the show live, and also an excellent NWA show the previous night in Philadelphia and will report on the card from a live-show perspective. From what I'm told from those who were there live and have already seen a tape of the show as well, both the Battle Royal and War Games matches were better matches live because there was so much action the camera couldn't get it all in. I was also told that the match with Rick & Scott Steiner vs. Mike Rotunda & Kevin Sullivan was a better match on television than live and that Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk was also better as a television match than live, although it was an excellent match live as well"
"There were a few downpoints to the show, particularly the Sting vs. Muta finish which was never explained at all to the live crowd (and never touched upon or explained to the TV audience until the end of the show as well)"
"From a live show perspective, this was the first unequivocal success of 1989 for the NWA, as the show drew a sellout of 12,500 fans (11,500 paid) and $188,000, which is the biggest NWA gate since the 1988 Baltimore Bash (Flair vs. Lex Luger). The Baltimore Arena usually holds 14,000 however seats had to be knocked out due to requirements for televising a first-rate show. The show did sellout in advance, which is doubly impressive since Titan was in town one week earlier and sold out, plus for casual fans, a 4:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon starting time is traditionally death for wrestling"
"While I'd rate the Flair vs. Steamboat match in Nashville as a better match than any matches from Baltimore, the final three matches in Baltimore (Steamboat vs. Luger, War Games and Flair vs. Funk) were all better than any other match on either the Nashville or the Chicago PPV shows. Nashville did have better finishes"
"The NWA even pulled a Vince McMahon, as it got an ad in in many (but not all) markets which carried the Prime Time Wrestling show the previous Monday, advertising the card, which is kind of poetic justice for Titan getting Wrestlemania ads in during the two Clash of Champions specials which competed with the shows"
"The current plan now for the remainder of 1989 big shows is for a Clash of Champions on Sept. 13, tentatively slated for Columbia, SC (show hasn't been booked but don't be surprised to see a Flair & Sting vs. Funk & Muta tag match on top), a PPV show called "The Holloween Holocaust" on Oct. 29 from Philadelphia (main events "discussed" have included Flair vs. Funk in a cage. Flair vs. Muta and a longshot of Flair vs. Sid Vicious), a November Clash of the Champions, possibly from St. Louis (which would be a bad idea because St. Louis won't draw on a Wednesday night) and Starrcade on Dec. 15, most likely from either the Omni in Atlanta or possibly the Greensboro Coliseum (best bets on top would be Flair vs. Muta or Flair vs. Lex Luger)"
"For this, the biggest money gate and largest NWA crowd of 1989, the selection of souvenirs was awful and quality of them no better. I usually don't bother with this stuff but was asked to pick stuff up for friends, and was so embarrassed by the stuff I didn't get anything. They also didn't have any T-shirts in little kid sizes, and even though the NWA isn't particularly strong with little kids in comparison to Titan, there were plenty of kids around and kids are far more likely to buy gimmicks than adults (one of the secrets of Titan's marketing success) so to have nothing available in kid sizes is outrageous"
"Sid has big star written all over him, even if his work, ahem, isn't of the level of the rest of the NWA "stars." The crowd seemed to cheer the heels more then the faces early, but instead of switching, instead just reacted to Vicious. When he was in the ring, the place went nuts cheering him, even though he didn't do much in the ring partially because he was working on a very bad back....When Spivey was in, the fans booed and chanted "We Want Sid." Everytime Sid tagged in the place popped. When Sid tagged out, they booed"
"(I believe this never aired on TV because they were doing a slow-mo of the finish and then interviews) Sullivan and Rotunda started shoving one another and Rotunda walked out on Sullivan, but I believe this was done more to distract the fans from the fact that heels lost than actually to foreshadow an imminent turn"
"It appeared to me the blacks in the crowd were totally behind Muta although most everyone else was for Sting"
"Four weeks ago on television it was announced that this would be a no DQ match, and the booking sheet all along listed this as a no DQ match. A few weeks later, Steamboat does a TV interview issuing the challenge for a no DQ, forgetting the fact that on at least two occasions, the match was already advertised as no DQ. Luger continually refuses the no DQ, and on TBS the day before the show, it was announced it wouldn't be a no DQ but a regular rules match. Then, the ring announcer announces it was no DQ, Luger than grabs the mic and says if it's no DQ he would leave but if it was regular rules, he'd stay. Since this was originally also billed as No. 1 contendership vs. U.S. title, Luger refusing the no DQ makes little genuine sense since he would have every bit as much to gain from the win. And if it was going to be regular rules with a DQ finish, which it was, then they shouldn't even talk about no DQ on television until after this match and use no DQ Stips for the rematches (which they are apparently going to do)"
"The idea behind this is to make Luger "back down" from the no DQ stip in an arrogant manner to get him heat from the crowd, but instead it makes the promotion look Mickey-Mouse on a show they can least afford to and at a time when that perception is what is killing them. Luckily, this whole tirade really is for naught because the match was so great that nobody has a right to complain about anything"
"The crowd started out pro-Luger but they turned during the match since Luger plays such a tremendous heel with his mannerisms. He seemed really upset at a section of fans at ringside who chanted "steroid f-----" at him"
"Ric Flair made his return to the ring after the second longest ring absence of his career and pinned Terry Funk in 17:23 to retain the NWA title. This was not your typical Flair match. In fact, it was simply a brawl both inside and outside the ring from bell-to-bell with double juice of the heavy variety. The juice literally stunned the crowd into silence since this is Maryland and that stuff isn't allowed, however the NWA basically "challenged the commission" on its anti-blood position before the card and won. The commissioners actually left the show prior to the start of this match so they wouldn't have to actually be there for the carnage"
"Lots of guys working at less then 100 percent. Johnny Ace suffered a broken cheekbone about ten days earlier. Terry Funk has been working on a fractured sacrum in the lower back and yet is still having excellent matches nightly. Vicious had the back injury. Cornette worked on a blown out knee. Even announcer Jim Ross' voice was dead before the show even started from calling so many matches per week for the last few months"
"If the advertising and hype of these matches ever catches up to the action level, things will turn around"
"Entertainment Tonight did a feature on the WWF vs. NWA wars last Monday night as its lead story. My own impression of the piece is that Vince McMahon came off like the schoolyard bully even though most of what he said as far as his competition's arena shows and TV ratings not being what they should be was totally valid. The piece really made the NWA look minor league in comparison with Titan, and in many ways, to an outsider, that is the impression that almost everyone would come up with"
"After the first match, ring announcer Joel Goodhart announced the next date for Philadelphia in August and then talked about the Flair vs. Funk match the next night in Baltimore and said how the promoters had signed "the winner of tommorow's match to defend the title against the loser of tommorow's match" to virtually no crowd reaction. After the next match, Goodhart then announced the date again and said the main event would be Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk and the place went wild. I guess the moral of the story is you can't make things too confusing for wrestling fans or they won't understand them"
"Lex Luger beat Ricky Steamboat via DQ in 14:10 in a U.S. title match in a match that was even better than their PPV match. They did at least 25 minutes worth of moves and spots in 14 minutes, plus did lots of brawling outside the ring with chairs and tables. I can't describe how great this match was but to me it was better than anything in Baltimore"
"Sting beat Terry Funk in a no DQ match by pinning Bill Irwin in 14:35"
"Early in the match Terry Gordy threw a table at Jim Cornette and Cornette jumped down from the apron and blew out his knee and had to be helped to the dressing room"
"After watching Rick Steiner work both shows. I'm convinced that he can't be hurt, at least not by anyone else"
"Several that I talked with said that was the best Philadelphia card in about two years, which is amazing considering it was the night before an afternoon PPV show"
"WVEU (Ch. 69) in Atlanta will carry the NWA's syndicated TV shows which is the first time the NWA syndicated TV shows have ever aired in Atlanta due to the exclusivity the local station WTBS wanted in the market"
"WWF brought in a jobber to look like Ric Flair at the tapings and another jobber from Tennessee was billed as "Bobby Jarrett." Another inside dig was in the Toilet Bowl sketch with Dusty several weeks back, in the bathroom there was an autographed photo of Rock Hudson signed to a prominent member of a rival organization"
"World Championship Wrestling on 7/15 drew a 2.4 rating and 6.7 share which is the highest share (but not rating) that the show has drawn since the summer of 1987 when the ratings started going into the toilet when Dusty Rhodes turned the show into the 30 second squash/90 second interview format"
"You should have heard all the fans in Philadelphia who thought they were smart telling everyone that Gilbert was going to turn on Sting at the Baltimore show—actually I thought it was a possibility as well"
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armbar
Samurai Cop
I'm the real waffel113.
Posts: 2,273
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Post by armbar on Mar 22, 2021 7:34:32 GMT -5
Am enjoying these. Occasionally laughed with some entries. The note of Ding Dongs facing King Kong in Hong Kong "at least now NWA has rhyme" made me chuckle. Also the "Holloween Holocaust" name made me burst out in laughter just because it seems so unbelievable.
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Post by jason1980s on Mar 22, 2021 9:32:01 GMT -5
WCW was always bad with their merchandising. They had a catalog for the first few magazines, like 1990-1991 but by 1992 they didn't really do them anymore and I can't remember any in 1993 magazines. There may have been one for 1994 since I know they did TV ads for merch. Even with Bischoff in charge they rarely had ads for merch and I don't recall very many, if any full catalogs like WWF did after the early 90s. I do remember a full catalog in late 1997 BUT it was one sent to my house, not from a magazine, as I had ordered from them before.
I kind of get not doing catalogs in the early 90s since there weren't a lot of marketable guys but they should def. have started up again when Hogan and Macho came, even if they were the only guys featured. Even with the n w o in full force they weren't doing catalogs. You also never saw ads for their toys on TV and the commentators talking about them like WWF would do occasionally. Their video releases, pre Starrcade 1993 were awful too with normally half the matches cut from the VHS. After Starrcade they kept all the matches as far as I could tell.
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Post by DSR on Mar 22, 2021 11:43:57 GMT -5
Truly, he is the master and the ruler of the world.
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Post by James Fabiano on Mar 22, 2021 17:51:39 GMT -5
I need to know now...which NWA star got the Rock Hudson autograph?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2021 5:01:11 GMT -5
I need to know now...which NWA star got the Rock Hudson autograph? I'd put money on it being Jim Barnett
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2021 5:08:40 GMT -5
Aug 7, 89
"Rick Steamboat's contract with the NWA expired at the end of July and as of our last word, which was late this week, it appears both sides were far enough apart on terms and no move was being made to get together. The NWA was busy by midweek making alternative plans for Lex Luger, while it appears that Steamboat wasn't nearly as likely to make any sort of a long-term deal as he had been"
"In the long run, it's not a killer. No loss of personnel by either major organization would be of major long-term significance except for Flair and Hulk Hogan. From a business standpoint, the loss is probably the same, or maybe a tad bit more significant than earlier in the year when the NWA fired Barry Windham, who was also a key headliner that a lot of time had been devoted to building to be a major star"
"The top guys in the NWA don't like to be shown up on cards, and since the top guys aren't held back in order to not overshadow less talented guys getting a bigger push as in the WWF, it elevates the entire quality of the top matches to have a wrestler like Steamboat on the show. In a sense, as for show quality, it would have given the show two Ric Flair's. For a group whose sole advantage over its competition, and only real advantage, is its superior quality of actual wrestling action, the loss of someone of that quality, especially when I have to believe it could have been avoided, is unfortunate"
"From the other perspective, one can argue that Steamboat wasn't a great drawing card, which is the same argument that can be made about every NWA wrestler this year since before the PPV Bash from Baltimore, the NWA hasn't had any truly outstanding houses all year. But it would be fair to say his popularity didn't quite match up to his work, which is more of a product of how wrestling fans have been educated towards this business (or more precisely, not educated) in this country, but it's also a fact in the present day"
"Titan have said they wouldn't use Steamboat, but they said the same thing about Barry Windham and Dusty Rhodes"
"Right now there is far too much backstabbing and petty jealousy within the company which is slowing down progress"
"I can smell problems already if they are booking Midnight vs. Skyscrapers because Skyscrapers don't sell anything and you know Midnights will have to put them over if they are grooming them for the Road Warriors"
"They had an interview with Rotunda challenging Dr. Death to a "scientific" match with no punching or kicking allowed, then did an interview with Doc, which apparently was supposed to air in two weeks, talking about the match as if it already happened and as if he was DQ'd for throwing the first punch"
"They had Sting come out, announced as TV champ, with the belt, then said that the belt was held up and had Gary Hart come out in an interview with the same TV belt moments later (the matches were taped before Baltimore, interviews taped in Baltimore)"
"Dudes were heavily pressured to cancel this Japan tour, but they are going, so expect an "injury" angle on television in the next week or two"
"NWA had a terrible weekend, even with all the hype for Baltimore. The Friday night show fell to a 1.3 (down 40 percent from the previous week), Saturday TBS drew a 1.4 rating which is the all-time low (and they no longer have the revolving time slot to blame for bad ratings, although overall TBS had its worst Saturday ever so wrestling, compared with other programming did very well, the two shows prior to wrestling did 0.3 and 0.7 respectively) and Sunday did a 2.2, which went head-to-head with the PPV show"
"There's talk of holding a Costume Battle Royal as part of the NWA's October PPV card. Please, say it ain't so"
Aug 14, 89
"There has been a ton of talk throughout pro wrestling of the situation where the NWA and Rick Steamboat parted company. In fact, in a rare bizarre and almost honest approach, the NWA even acknowledged the parting of the ways on its Power Hour television show when Gordon Solie led off his news segment with the story about the split. Solie, and the NWA, are claiming the split wasn't over contract difficulties, but simply because Steamboat had a foot injury"
"In truth, Steamboat does have a foot injury, but it was not an injury that would have led to him taking time off wrestling if contract terms had been agreed upon. Virtually all wrestlers work daily with injuries of some sort, so that can always be used as an excuse, and this type of p.r. softening of the issue is not uncommon in professional sports"
"Another point, and I want to point out that over this past week the phone calls from those in the business regarding this subject have been numerous, is that the NWA devoted the last six months to pushing Steamboat and making him a World champion and at a time when it needs stability for credibility, they lost him, and not to another organization"
"Steamboat did everything asked of him, and more, during his six-month NWA tenure, he put over Lex Luger at all the house shows and did a clean job for Ric Flair when the time came to give up the NWA title, and there are several NWA mainliners who complain or won't do clean jobs that are making far more money"
"Ric Flair is now chairman of the booking committee which basically means he's the booker with the final say, rather than have the committee vote and argue over what gets done. Eddie Gilbert and Kevin Sullivan and others still meet but Flair has the ultimate decision making power. It'll be interesting to see how this works out. In one sense, it is good since every wrestler respects Flair (which is needed for a booker to get anything accomplished) but I hate to see anything that might take anything away from Flair, the wrestler, which is a full-time job in itself (as in full-time I mean 24 hours)"
"8/6 at the Omni in Atlanta drew 13,000 fans and $89,000"
"Great Muta beat Sting via count out in the Dragon Shi match for the TV title however the title remains vacant because of the count out as finish saw Gary Hart keep Sting from getting back in the ring (Question—since the only way to win a Dragon Shi match is via count out, how can it be to determine a title if the title can't change hands via count out?)"
"The Power Hour, which followed a 17-inning Braves game and started about two hours late drew a 1.1 (better than Night Tracks does but well off what it had been doing), the World Championship Wrestling show on 7/29 drew a 2.3 (up 60 percent from its all-time low the week before), The Main Event on Sunday drew a 2.4 and a Ric Flair vs. Sting match taped in Greensboro (Match of the Year in 1988) replay drew a 1.8 between a baseball doubleheader"
"They taped three "amateur rules" matches between Steve Williams and Mike Rotunda in New Orleans on 7/31. In the first, Rotunda won via DQ when Williams punched him after Rotunda made all sorts of remarks about Williams' family (perceptive fans already know that ending since last week on TBS they mistakenly played an interview Williams did which was to air after the match where he mentioned the ending). The second match saw Williams come out with earplugs so he wouldn't hear Rotunda's insults, and pinned him. Third match saw ref Tommy Young bumped, Teddy Long comes out and as Williams is distracted. Rotunda gets from behind him and pins him"
"Tommy Rich will get Steamboat's spot and feud with Luger"
"Gary Hart now managing Funk on television. Why? Isn't that what set Funk apart from the other heels was he wasn't part of a group?"
"Idea for a Costume Battle Royal on the next PPV (please, no) is that the guys will be so dressed up in costumes that you don't know who they are and the wrestlers don't know who they are so anyone can fight anyone. Only problem is, aside from it making it look like a bunch of clowns out there, if the fans can't tell who is who, they won't care about it or root for their favorites, and besides, how can you disguise Sid Vicious?"
"WWF is adding a fifth PPV show for 1989 in late December. I believe Hogan vs. Zeus will headline. It is thought part of this is booking shows on PPV in late November, late December and late January should flatten the market for the NWA's Starrcade (WWF is under the impression it'll be Flair vs. Luger) which could do a decent buy rate if correctly hyped and they want to make sure that a) companies don't even pick it up because three wrestling PPV's in three months is too many anyway; or b) if they do, their hype will pale by comparison and it'll flatten all shows, but they have the track record and can afford a few flat shows and if NWA trickles below one percent a few times, companies are going to be less enthusiastic about carrying future PPV events"
"NWA contracts are for a specific period of time and don't automatically renew, while WWF contracts are originally for two years in duration, but automatically renew unless 13 weeks notice is given to be released from the contract (the 13 weeks being jobbed out of your mind time)."
"The Brain Busters had contracts from Jim Crockett Promotions which included promises of a certain money figure, which if not met by the payoffs, would have the difference made up in a balloon payment at the end of the contract term. When those balloon payments were reneged upon, it in a sense, made Tully & Arn free agents since their contracts weren't lived up to"
"As an overall trend, the NWA's popularity on TV and at the house has been on the decline since January, and really, since the summer of 1987 when Dusty botched up the potential stemming from the UWF purchase"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2021 4:49:44 GMT -5
Aug 21, 89
"There was a huge banner being walked around the building which said, "NWA #1." I only bring that up because of what happened next. The card stopped cold. We had no idea what was going on, but all of a sudden the card stopped. Several security officers and Tony Garea started chatting and then went into the crowd, and we started looking to see what the problem was but no fights in the stands or nothing. I kind of figured it out but the perpetrators of this heinous act were nowhere to be seen. It became obvious they were looking for the banner but couldn't find it, and they wouldn't re-start the card until they did. Luckily the WWF has no competition in this business and it was only a fictitious delay in the card trying to find a fictitious banner for a non-existent competitor. Finally, after a long delay, a few kids finked on the guys with the banner and they carted the guilty parties out of the building and ripped up the banner"
"Gene then got the fans to chant "Jesse, Jesse," which they did. A marked difference from the NWA in Baltimore when the ring announcer tried to get them to chant "Luger, Luger" but unfortunately for the NWA, their crowds aren't Pavlov's Dogs and they don't react that easily"
"The NWA announced the line-up for its second annual "Fall Brawl," a TBS "Clash of the Champions" special on 9/12 from Columbia, SC; Ric Flair & Sting vs. Great Muta & Terry Funk; Lex Luger vs. Tommy Rich for the U.S. title, Michael Hayes & Jim Garvin vs. Rick & Scott Steiner for the NWA tag team titles. Road Warriors vs. Samoan Swat Team, Steve Williams vs. Mike Rotunda, Brian Pillman vs. Norman the Lunatic and Sid Vicious vs. Ranger Ross plus the debut of Tom Zenk, who won't be coming in as a masked wrestler as originally planned according to the latest word I've received. Nobody can say that isn't a strong card for a free television special. Actually, it's probably too strong, since they are putting on television for free the basic headline matches at the house shows that they are running except the two headline singles matches are being put together in a tag team match"
"Keith Mitchell was hired as head of production. Mitchell was the production head for World Class during its glory days and was a pioneer in high production values of pro wrestling shows before the WWF"
"Eddie Gilbert beat Great Muta in a no DQ match by pinning Gary Hart (boy do I hate that finish but I will say that Muta probably got over better by blowing the mist in Tommy Rich, Missy Hyatt and Eddie Gilbert's eyes than he would have had he just beat Gilbert)"
"The Dynamic Dudes were jobbed out on television in both singles and tags at the recent taping since they are headed to Japan. The official word is that Johnny Ace suffered a broken cheekbone (ironically, he really suffered a similar injury about a month back) when he was hit by the canteen in a TV match where the New Zealand Militia beat the Dudes"
"Sting & Steve Williams beat Terry Funk & Terry Gordy when Williams cradled Funk. This finish defies logic if only because the main event on the next show has Flair vs. Funk for the NWA title. Funk's major problem as a heel is that nobody believes he has a chance to beat Flair and they only solidified that belief for the fans who presumably would be paying next month to see their match locally by having Funk get pinned by Williams. The finish might get a great pop for the moment, which it did, but what good is it if it hurts the gate appeal of the next card?"
"TBS ran three hours of wrestling on Saturday, which is awfully long"
"Since both groups will run five PPV's this year, I find it kind of funny that people are saying the NWA should copy the WWF and run less PPV shows, when both run the same amount"
"My own opinion as a fan is that the NWA isn’t running too many PPV shows, but from a business standpoint I believe both the NWA and WWF are running too many"
"WWF has established Wrestlemania as the biggie, and the NWA's equivalent is Starrcade, although not really established anywhere near as much because of the great job WWF has done for years in hyping Wrestlemania with the celebrities. Summer Slam and the Bash PPV would be equivalent, so the comparisons would be Survivors and Royal Rumble vs. Chitown Rumble and Music City Showdown and my feeling is on a comparative basis, given the WWF's wider exposure, wider popularity and better job of hyping, that considering the comparative audience for both groups, that the NWA has done just as well or better with its shows when it comes to gaining interest"
"When Ricky Steamboat came to the NWA, much of his scenario with Flair was probably tentatively planned through winning and losing the title back, although original plans were for him to lose the title to Windham and those changed with the booking change. This explains the big push even though he really didn't turn out to be as popular or as much of a drawing card as the NWA had hoped for when he was brought in. On the other hand Titan brings guys in and has already determined how far they are going to push them, but things change. For example, when Butch Reed came in, Vince thought the gimmick of a black wrestler with blonde hair would make him the hottest heel in the business, but early along the way he realized this wouldn't work and changed plans. He thought that Honkeytonk Man as a gimmick using music from the 50s and 60s would reach the audience that tunes into oldies on the radio and be a big hit as a babyface, but again he had to reverse his plans. With DiBiase, he gave him a push and went probably about as far with the gimmick as he could have gone, although when he tried the same with Curt Hennig, it didn't get over as well and he had to hold back the push."
"In the NWA, the contract specifies a certain amount of income per year, which depending upon the person, ranges from $75,000 up through more than $500,000. I believe Flair's contract may have provisions regarding the title as well, but none of the others do as far as I know. In the WWF, wrestlers are only guaranteed $50 for each time they work a television taping and the rest is at the discretion of McMahon, who basically pays them what he considers as fair (ie, hopefully enough to keep them pacified and happy and more than they could make elsewhere, but not enough to where they get so rich they can leave on the spot like John Studd did)"
"DiBiase joined Titan for two reasons primarily, first, he didn't want to work for Dusty Rhodes and in hindsight, it was the wisest move of his career considering how Rhodes buried all the UWF talent to prove the NWA was superior after the purchase; and second, because he liked the gimmick and felt he could make money with it when McMahon came up with it for him. So he knew his gimmick ahead of time, including the black valet who would be named after Dusty Rhodes"
"Taylor had no choice at the time he made the move and had no leverage so he could either take it or leave it, and he couldn't afford to live on what he could make in World Class so the move was one of economic neccessity, since the NWA wasn't an option since Rhodes was still booker when Taylor made his move and Rhodes had already buried him and tried to starve him into quitting, which he did"
"Others, like Tully Blanchard or Arn Anderson, came in because of problems with the booker at the time, not because of a promise of a title belt or of more money, since neither was guaranteed (although the carrot was surely dangled in both cases) when the move was made, and since the NWA reneged upon the balloon payments in the contracts, they were technically free agents. Since most of the top talent is under contract to their respective groups and the NWA under Turner has yet to violate a contract as far as I know, moves like this happen less and less, although moves from one side to another aren't impossible even with contracts because a guy can get himself fired, thus be available to obtain work with the opposition"
Aug 28, 89
"Two of the strangest, and almost inexcusable technical blunders occurred this past week with the National Wrestling Alliance. One, most of you already know—the Saturday World Championship Wrestling show on TBS that aired on 8/19 was the same program that had aired three weeks previous. The second, is that a major angle that was scheduled to air on the TBS show this coming Saturday was never taped"
"What happened on Saturday, according to the best information I've been able to get, is that someone simply put the wrong tape in the box to air on Saturday and so the wrong show aired, complete with a match and interview with Ricky Steamboat talking about his upcoming no DQ matches with Lex Luger, and with promos for house shows that have already taken place. Actually, I consider this as a double mistake, and because of this, it's almost totally inexcusable. It took us all of five seconds to realize this was the wrong show being aired, so how come, after the first commercial break, they didn't realize something was wrong and make the necessary adjustments?"
"To make matters worse, the previous Wednesday, the TBS tapings were held in Atlanta. They taped the show that was to air on 8/19, which never did, and to the best of my knowledge, never will, which was Ric Flair's first show as new booker and was to set up a couple of angles that were taped later and scheduled to air this Saturday. The major angle was a match between newcomer Dick Slater against Sting, which wound up with Great Muta and Terry Funk hitting the ring, followed by Ric Flair and Brian Pillman and during the ensuing melee, Flair got the branding iron that the heels had brought in and used it to "break Slater's arm." The show that was taped for 8/19 didn't air. The show that was taped for 8/26 will air, except that for some reason, somebody forgot to flip a certain "on" switch on the machines after a break and the last 20 minutes or so of the program, which included the match and angle, were never taped"
"It used to be that the house show was the most important thing and TV was used to set it up. Now, PPV is the most important, but in the Titan scheme of things, the house show is a close second but watching the NWA's television, the house show ranks a distant third (behind the PPV shows and all of the television shows)"
"Because better movies are coming to cable and because of the NBA playoffs, wrestling events were way down in the list of the highest rated individual programs on cable for the second quarter of 1989. The highest rated wrestling show of the quarter was the Clash of the Champions from New Orleans (Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat main event) which was the 17th highest rated show (traditionally, the Clashes have been in the top three to five for the quarter on cable). The NWA show trailed 11 NBA playoff games on TBS and five movies, two on USA, two on TBS and one on TNT"
"The NWA show at the UIC Pavilion on 8/20 drew about 3,600 fans and $43,000, which isn't bad considering that the TV didn't run in its scheduled time slot for the previous two Sunday's prior to the card. It seemed the crowd was mainly the hardcores, who go out of their way to find the TV show and know about the live cards and seemed real pleased with the show itself"
"Even though the Ding Dongs were the faces, the crowd taunted and booed them unmercifully. I was embarrassed a bit for the guys because they worked hard and really aren't that bad work-wise but the crowd hates the gimmick, and they didn't bring any bells with them"
"Scott does some amazing moves, the best of which is that flying headscissors type move that I recall Raul Mata used to use out here (but Steiner is three times Mata's size and does it just as well)"
"Nobody cares about Rich who couldn't rally any support but Luger has turned into a good enough worker to carry a match like this to being better than average and keeping complete audience reaction levels very high"
"Danny Spivey canceled his Japan tour for the series that just began so Baba brought in Todd Champion to be Terry Gordy's new tag team partner. Quite a drop-off. Spivey told Baba he was going to the WWF, but in reality he canceled the tour because of pressure from the NWA and there was talk of bringing in someone like Kevin Kelly or John Nord to be a new Skyscraper if Spivey wouldn't give up his Japan commitments"
"Newcomers to the NWA include the State Highway Patrol (Dwayne Bruce & Dale Veasy), Cuban Assassin (David Sierra—Top Gun in Oregon) as mainly jobbers plus Brad Armstrong, Dick Slater and at the Atlanta tapings on Wednesday they had Kevin Kelly and Benjamin Franklin Peacock (Botswana Beast—real name Ben Peacock) come in for try-outs. Peacock was supposed to be a jive-talking black but they booed him out of the place when he was trying to be a face"
"Armstrong did TV jobs for Flair and Lex Luger at the 8/15 taping in Cleveland"
"The Ding Dongs idea is finished as they were unmasked in Cleveland"
"The Saturday show, which was a three hour show (8/12) did a 2.3 in each hour so they kept the audience all the way through while the Sunday show also did a 2.3, which is pretty good since they had announced on TV that there wouldn't be a Sunday show, and due to some sort of a schedule quirk, it was put back at the last minute and it was all repeated matches"
"Butch Reed will be returning and will probably wind up as a tag team with either Mike Rotunda or Kevin Sullivan, while Iron Sheik & Ron Simmons & Cuban Assassin will form a top-level jobber trio"
"Jim Herd appeared as a guest on John Arezzi's "Wrestling Spotlight" program oh WNYG Radio in New York...."There is some great wrestlers in the WWF like Bret Hart, Curt Hennig, Tully & Arn, those people can do what we do. I would be remiss if I told fans we wouldn't be interested in any of them if they were available but our primary thrust is going to develop our own stars"..."He came in on top of us in Nashville the night before our pay-per-view. The next time in Nashville in September, we booked ourselves in with plenty of room on either side of the WWF dates and he once again added a date the night before us once again. It's certainly a predatory move if I've ever seen one" "
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2021 4:33:19 GMT -5
Sept 3, 89
"Last week I mentioned that they had lost the Sting vs. Dick Slater match and post-match angle, and lo and behold, it showed up on television. While this hasn't been confirmed for me yet, what I believe to be the case is that they lost the actual footage that was taped, but did have the actual film from different cameras and they re-edited the original footage back piece-by-piece and put on the original soundtrack (if you notice, the sound was about a half-second off the match the whole way but you had to listen close to notice any problems) and the match and angle aired"
"One reader wrote in asking if the name Robin Green is a spoof on Mike Tyson's problems (Robin Givens and Mitch Green) and I'm almost certain that is where the name came from. At least I'm certain that Robin Green's similarity to Robin Givens is not a coincidence—I mean the name similarity"
"Tommy Edwards, the long-time director of the TBS wrestling shows, was the guy who was blamed for the snafu on the TBS Saturday show on 8/19 which was a replay of the 7/28 show. Edwards was suspended without pay and will no longer work in wrestling, but may be re-assigned elsewhere in the TBS empire"
"I'm told TBS got hundreds of phone calls about the tape mishap last week. TBS did realize almost immediately that the wrong tape was airing and they scrambled everywhere to find the right tape and eventually did find the right tape, but not until about 45 minutes after the show was over"
"Ironically, the TV ratings for the Saturday show which was the rerun was a 2.0, which is better than some of the first-run shows did and the audience actually grew until the end"
"How is this for organization? The NWA will be getting a decent time slot on WPIX in New York starting on Sept. 30. According to the NWA, the show will air at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday (in which case the last half hour will be head-to-head with the first half-hour of Titan's show on Fox), according to WPIX the show will air at 11 a.m"
"Tom Zenk will start on the Clash of Champions. The last word I've heard is Zenk will be called "The Z Man," but won't be wearing a mask, although I get conflicting stories on whether he'll be masked or not each day"
"Longtime wrestling photographer and longtime friend of ours Frank Amato refereed the prelim matches in jeans and a polo shirt as a lot of the guys arrived late, including referees"
"Chris Cruise, who has prior experience with CNN and also with a military news service got a try-out as an announcer at the 8/14 taping in Charleston, WV and is said to have a good chance of getting the slot. He's got a good voice and he may be on the air by October once they train him the way they want him to announce"
"They've already had three Steiners vs. Freebirds matches on television the past three weeks and have another scheduled for the Clash, and are also running the match at most of the house shows"
"The Power Hour from Cleveland was a weak show since the audience looked comatose during the three matches that aired and were loudly chanting boring during the Tommy Rich vs. Cuban Assassin (David Sierra) match. I felt sorry for Sierra because he was trying everything to get people interested and they just weren't buying anything"
Sept 11, 89
"The NWA drew its largest crowd of the year for the Labor Day weekend card on Sunday night at the Omni in Atlanta. The crowd, estimated at a near sellout 15,500, was enhanced by a kids under-12 when accompanied by an adult would be admitted free gimmick, so the gate was hardly record setting. But at this point, a crowd of that size, even if it was 20 to 25 percent papered (or more), has to be considered something of a positive sign"
"NWA and WWF will have two near head-to-heads in upcoming weeks. NWA has the Capital Centre booked this coming Saturday night while the WWF will run the D.C. Armory the next day. The following weekend, WWF has the Rosemont Horizon booked in the Chicago area on a Saturday night with Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage with Liz in the corner on top with nothing underneath while the NWA the next night has the Pavilion with Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk in a Texas death match and little underneath there as well"
"The Road Warriors' Zubaz pants company is doing some significant business, particularly in the Minneapolis area"
"NWA jobber Ray Lloyd is working as a junior high school football coach in his home town of Valdosta, GA"
"Ric Flair pinned Brad Armstrong in a World title defense on World Wide Wrestling. It was a good match and would have been even better if they had more time on a syndicated show since it was a babyface match which needs time to develop. After all that talk about a top ten and someone having to be in the top ten to get a title shot they do a title match with a guy who just the week before was pinned by Luger in a U.S. title match?"
"The Power Hour on Friday drew a 2.0, which tied its all-time best in the slot (ironically, it was the weakest Power Hour show thus far with the Luger vs. Armstrong headline match in front of a comatose crowd in Cleveland)"
"Even more ironic is that the two-hour TBS wrestling show TBS show with Sting vs. Dick Slater, with the Robin Green angle, which was the best TBS Saturday show in a while, drew just a 1.9 rating, probably hurt somewhat because the show building up to it the previous week never aired"
"The Clash will be going head-to-head with the Roller Games premiere on 9/12 and the Roller Games have several major stations around the country including Superstation WGN in Chicago"
"The NWA show on TBS on Saturday was delayed because a football game (which ended two hours earlier) went over and they ran the movie in full and delayed wrestling. This has caused a lot of questioning once again as to TBS' commitment to the wrestling"
"I believe right now, because of pressure put on by cable companies, that neither the WWF or NWA will counter a PPV event with a freebie on television"
Sept 18, 89
"The original Starrcade date for the NWA was Dec. 17, but I'm now told the card will occur earlier in the week. Dec. 17 would have put the card head-to-head with NFL games, not to mention just ten days before Titan's show. I was given Dec. 13 as a tentative date earlier this week, and no live site has been officially announced other than word is they would like to hold it somewhere other than the South to break the image that they are a Southeastern regional outfit. Jeez, the last two PPV's going into Starrcade will be in Baltimore and Philadelphia, so they almost are due for a PPV show out of the Carolinas or Georgia as they've yet to hold one there"
"It's questionable whether Dick Slater or Tom Zenk will appear as scheduled for the October series since both have NWA commitments during that time. There is much heat between the two groups, who really could have worked together for mutual benefit but couldn't put the deal together, because it has cost All Japan a lot of wrestlers they were using regularly since the NWA is signing guys up to keep them from wanting or needing to go to Japan to earn top dollar. I believe this is Johnny Ace's last tour as well as he was offered an NWA contract (reportedly for $100,000) and it wouldn't allow him to make future Japan tours"
"I believe the only NWA wrestler who is going to keep up future Japan tours will be Gordy, with the exception of the Road Warriors who may work an occasional week here and there in Japan but I doubt they'll work full tours"
"Scott Norton has disappeared from the AWA. There are rumors flying around he's NWA-bound, but nobody in the NWA has confirmed them. Norton signed a two-year contract with the AWA and the NWA doesn't seem to want to open up the can of worms by signing wrestlers under contract to other promotions so we'll have to see what happens"
"Stampede is trying to put together a deal to book Ric Flair for one shot against Owen Hart"
"Terry Funk's physical ailments continue. Just got word Funk suffered a staph infection in his left elbow and was forced to miss his Texas death matches with Ric Flair over the weekend and was replaced by Dick Slater. As I write this, it is touch-and-go whether Slater will have to fill in for Funk in the Clash match-up on Tuesday night"
"The Omni card on 9/3 drew between 10,000 and 11,000 paid and $95,000, although there were nearly 15,000 in the building because kids under 12 were admitted free with a paying adult"
"Sting is working nightly with a very bad ankle, which is why several of his recent matches with the Great Muta have gone less than five minutes. Actually, almost everyone is banged up right now because of the physical style"
"Besides Washington, D.C. and Chicago which I mentioned last week in having NWA vs. WWF cards head-to-head, there were also head-to-heads in Nashville last weekend, Greensboro this weekend (WWF booked nearby Winston-Salem with Hogan vs. Savage the day after NWA booked Greensboro) and West Palm Beach. At the beginning I thought this was a coincidence, but obviously that isn't the case"
"Even though we've made a big deal about the Clash competing with the Roller Games debut, the real competition for Clash is the season opener of "Roseanne," which goes head-to-head with its second hour, and that is the single toughest competition on television"
"Bobby & Jackie Fulton are headed in as The Fantastics. Tommy Rogers is working another job and didn't want to come in full-time and is content to work only in Japan"
"Part of the reason the NWA is drawing so much better in Atlanta than anywhere else is because they are doing specific promos for the cards on TBS, plus airing localized interviews for the Omni matches on Ch. 69 in Atlanta, which carries the two syndicated shows"
"NWA World Wide Wrestling aired on 9/9 on WPIX in New York at 11 a.m., will be pre-empted the next two weeks in that slot for Roller Games, then on 9/30 moves into the slot permanently, although the NWA has been telling people the show will air at 9:30 a.m"
"NWA on TV is advertising a debut card in Syracuse, NY on 9/29, but the tickets being sold are for a card on 9/28, so who knows?"
"NWA lost the Capital Centre as the building cancelled all future cards and is bringing the WWF back in. I pretty much expected that would happen all along since the NWA wasn't strong enough when it got the building to sustain the size of crowds the building would be satisfied with when it kicked WWF out"
"Prelim wrestler Dale Veasy, whose gimmick, ironically is of the State Patrol tag team, was arrested this past week for theft and extortion in trying to intimidate a witness in regards to his arrest in August on a charge of selling steroids"
"How come the NWA never booked a date in Amarillo when Flair vs. Funk was running? That sellout was a gimme"
"Saturday TBS had Sid Vicious beat Scott Hall (one of the worst matches of the year, so bad that they had to insert crowd footage several times during the match over the actual action to cover up missed moves and messed up stuff)"
"Armstrong subbed for Stan Lane in all three Florida shows as Lane is allergic to the state of Florida right now"
"There are wrestlers who have their own insurance but they are in the minority. I do know that the NWA wrestlers under Crockett had an insurance plan but don't know if they do under Turner or not, but there were stipulations and I think ring-related injuries weren't part of the plan"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2021 6:01:03 GMT -5
Sept 25, 89
"The steady stream of big shows continued this past Tuesday night with the NWA's Clash of the Champions card from Columbia, SC on TBS. While the show left a lot of people with some positive emotions, because for the most part the action was top-notch and it was a good live television special, not to mention it delivered surprisingly strong ratings, I think people who are thinking that this was a turnaround for the promotion are being quite premature. The promotion is months away from a turnaround in its fortunes, and that's provided that the occasional steps forward aren't negated by steps backward which always seem to follow."
"The SST got heat on Hawk. One interesting thing I noted is that when they had the near falls on Hawk and he kicked out, that there was no crowd "pop." Yet every other near fall situation on the card where the babyface was down, the crowd popped for the kick out. This is where that invincibility works against you. People don't believe there's a chance of actually seeing that pinfall, so it makes it hard to build up heat by long-term selling"
"They had been hinting for weeks that the break-up of Dangerously and the SST would occur, and it figured to be on this card. It wasn't much of an impact-making break-up, which my impression was, because they didn't want to focus on this because they were getting ready to phase out Dangerously. I'm not sure if this was the plan, but it turned out to be the end result"
"I didn't care for the commentary as Jim Ross and Jim Cornette pulled a Vince McMahon "Who is he?" routine. While I'm sure that a great number of fans didn't recognize Tom Zenk since it's been two years since he's been with the WWF (and so few people watch the AWA), the bottom line is a great number of fans did recognize who he was and it made the announcers look like they didn't know the business they were covering. In the WWF, that's fine, because that's part of the gimmick, but in the NWA, that’s pretty insulting to your audience and hurts the credibility of your announcing and production team as "experts" in the field when the fan thinks he's either being insulted, or knows more than the guy who is telling him what's going on knows"
"My own belief on Zenk is that he has the potential to be a star here, but only if he's spectacular in the ring, because he's so similar in look and physique to Brian Pillman and Scott Steiner, both of whom can be spectacular performers and on this night he came off a distant third"
"The Freebirds (Michael Hayes & Jim Garvin) retained the NWA tag team titles beating the Steiner brothers in 10:27. This match began at exactly 9 p.m. Eastern time since the Clash was going to buck "Roseanne," the highest rated show on television, and it was felt they needed a strong match to start at this time so as not to lose too much audience. As it turned out, this worked perfectly, since the show's ratings held up during "Roseanne," which is something that couldn't be said for the Roller Games debut show in the markets where it competed with "Roseanne." "
"The Freebirds came in with only one tag belt because the other one was stolen somewhere on the road. The NWA frantically tried to get two of the three old six-man belts from out of Minnesota that the Road Warriors held with Tenryu to be brought in as new belts but they must not have arrived on time"
"Ric Flair & Sting beat Dick Slater & Great Muta via disqualification in 19:16. The match itself was excellent but the angle afterwards has turned into one of major controversy. All sorts of good moves, some of which the cameras actually caught"
"The show itself drew a 4.7 rating as a composite which means 2.4 million homes and approximately 5.3 million viewers. The rating itself was the best for any Clash since the third Clash from Albany, GA last year with Barry Windham vs. Sting on top with John Ayres doing the run-in. As for the number of viewers, it was actually the most number of viewers (since TBS is available in more households this year than last year) for any Clash except the very first one opposite Wrestlemania IV"
"It popped up to a 4.9 rating for the Freebirds vs. Steiner brothers match, which was opposite "Roseanne" in most of the country. It was thought going in that this was the second hottest match on the card, and judging from the ratings this was a correct assumption"
"The crowd enthusiasm was superb, particularly considering the live crowd was only 2,600 in Columbia, yet they made more noise and showed more enthusiasm than the 20,000 at the Meadowlands on Titan's PPV show two weeks earlier"
"Many people disliked the show particularly because of the camera work, which missed several key shots, and because of that, when they were "supposed to" miss a shot in the finish of the Steiner brothers match, it made them look even more inept because they'd been missing shots all night, including key shots (Paul Ellering belting Paul Dangerously and breaking the phone, one or two totally telgraphed spots during the Warriors match, too many crowd shots again at inopportune times during the show, and unforgivably getting bad shots of both dives out of the ring by Sting and Muta in the main event, plus showing Flair with a bag on his head while they were doing the angle to explain Sting's ankle injury, not to mention missing Terry Funk's run-in, he was all of a sudden in the ring without any explanation)"
"As far as the changing of the announced main event, there were a lot of complaints about this registered to me. There was nothing they could do about that because Funk legitimately was hurt. He had a severe staph infection in his elbow and the blood poisoning had spread and he underwent surgery about a week before the Clash. The television promos were all taped before hand and the final TBS shows before the Clash were taped before hand. The injury was actually so severe that the doctors said if Funk hadn't have had it treated for a day or two longer that they would have been forced to amputate the arm. Still, Funk came out of a hospital bed to do the run-in on the show. However, to the public, Funk was fine on Friday night's Power Hour and people saw it as a cheap way to change a main event that had been pushed for weeks"
"This could have all been avoided if on Saturday's shows or the late promos they spent a few minutes doing a new voice-over and promos, and it may even have cost them a few viewers on Tuesday (but it wouldn't have been a significant number) but overall my opinion is they have to bend over backwards to regain the trust of the fans, and even then it will take at least 18-months to two years to do so. I'm not holding my breath because the current business regime doesn't appear to believe that keeping fans up-to-date about the house show line-ups is an important priority"
"As for the bag over the head during Funk's run-in—my own personal opinion when watching the show was I didn't think anything of it, just saw it as a different type of run-in and given what is coming up and given that Funk had to do something given the current circumstances with the promotion since the injury suffered in the fans' eyes would complete Flair's revenge on Funk, the run-in finish was the only finish that would be correct for this. After all, it was a free television show, not a PPV, and every other match on the card had a pinfall, and only one of which had even the slightest bit of controversy."
"I've heard far too many complaints and those complaints are valid about the bag over the head. Pro wrestling is a combination of sports and entertainment, and attempted murder is neither sport nor entertainment. The announcers came back from the most inopportune commercial break and talked about how during the break Brian Pillman had to give Flair mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and that is pretty strong stuff. Don't say Titan wouldn't have done it, because they did an Andre heart attack and the Randy Savage/Steamboat angle where they had to cut a hole in Steamboat's throat so he could breathe, and the bag over the head has been used in other promotions, and in fact last summer I saw Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express use it as a gimmick against The Fantastics in several cities and nobody complained about it then, but I can see the point"
"The next big one up for the NWA will be the Halloween Havoc PPV show on 10/28 from the Philadelphia Civic Center. I've still yet to get any kind of an adequate explanation as to why they are even running a PPV show this close to Starrcade (which by the way, has been finalized for December 13th at the Omni in Atlanta—a Wednesday night—which makes it awfully difficult for people who want to travel to see the show)."
"Sting had been bothered by a bad ankle for several weeks, which is why many of his house show matches with Muta had been disappointing. The bit on television during the Clash where Dick Slater pounded his ankle with the branding iron was to explain the arthroscopic surgery he was undergoing and he'll be out until early this coming week"
"Pillman was hospitalized over the weekend when he was coughing up blood. It has never been fully explained on the NWA TV although Jim Ross constantly hints about all the obstacles Pillman has had to overcome, but one of the ones is probably around two or three dozen operations to his throat going back to childhood"
"Paul E. Dangerously officially was fired on Thursday, after the TV taping in Atlanta. The firing occurred after a backstage argument between Dangerously and Ric Flair over a number of things, but most particularly because Dangerously was uncertain about his future role with the promotion. Actually I believe this had been brewing for about three weeks although I'm not sure why"
"The original plan was for Dangerously to stop managing after the Clash temporarily as the Samoans were going home to San Francisco for about a month and the Samoans and Dangerously had never gotten along from the start. He was to continue to do television work and then return sometime down the line in a managers' role again, but after watching the way the break-up was handled on Tuesday night, it appeared the writing was already on the wall"
"The final straw was Thursday, when according to one side, Dangerously didn't do what he was told to do on the Danger Zone, and according to the other side, he wasn't given any direction in the first place and the ensuing argument resulted in the firing. I'm really not sure of the legitimate reasons for all this because it had been brewing for a while and whatever happened on Thursday seems more like an excuse to do something that was eventually going to happen anyway"
"In a promotion where Gary Hart is managing the top three heels, this hardly seems like a move that makes any sense from a business standpoint. People can say what they want about Dangerously, but nobody can accuse him of not being as good a manager as Gary Hart"
"I was in Chicago over the weekend for no apparent reason although there was the Bears-Vikings game and both NWA and WWF wrestling in town over the weekend. I wound up missing the WWF show on Saturday night because nobody that I knew wanted to attend (they drew more than 12,000 fans to the Horizon and $148,000 for Hogan vs. Savage on top with a very weak undercard). The NWA show was one of the worst ones I've seen live all year, officially drawing 1,859 paid with 2,522 in the building (I don't know where they were hiding them because it sure didn't look like that many) and $23,658"
"Scott Steiner did do his Mata headscissors move on Spivey (you didn't think he'd try it on Sid, did you?)"
"Sid is going to be a big superstar of the 90s but he sure looked bad here. Scott did a german suplex on him near the finish and Sid wasn't too happy about it either"
"Lex Luger pinned Tommy Rich in a match that wasn't scheduled on the card to begin with but they brought the two in for the show to hopefully pacify the fans because Terry Funk and Sting, two of the guys in the top two matches, weren't going to be there because of injuries. Everyone booed Rich and cheered Luger here, even more so than in any other arena"
"Ric Flair kept the NWA title beating Dick Slater in a death match when Slater couldn't answer the bell for the sixth fall in 18:33. When Slater and Hart came down the aisle for the match, they might as well have been two security guards or two fans because nobody either cared or noticed, or both. Flair got the big pop. It was announced at the beginning of the card that Funk wouldn't be there and Slater was taking his place and the people booed that one loudly"
"The actual crowd the gate for last week's show at the Capital Centre was 4,000 and $45,000 (I had reported 2,500 last week) and it is the NWA's last show in the building. The WWF insisted on exclusivity or they wouldn't come back. The NWA also will no longer get the one Bash date each summer that they had in the past as Titan insisted on total exclusivity this time around"
"Titan booked Worcester, MA two days before the NWA's debut show there in October"
"The 11/12 Clash of Champions card will be at the 5,800 seat RPI Fieldhouse in Troy, NY. Don't ask me why. All I know is the powers wanted the show in the Northeast because they are so subconscious of the Southeastern regional image"
"Cornette is also the newest booking assistant which has some of the veterans unhappy since wrestlers, particularly veteran wrestlers, don't like to take orders from someone who wasn't a veteran wrestler and Cornette is in his mid-20s and isn't an athlete. Others say that Cornette has possibly the sharpest wrestling mind around and even though he's never been a full-time active wrestler, he's choreographed matches with the Midnight Express and put together finishes for years that have been top-notch"
"Big Van Vader was interested in coming in but the deal isn't going to happen. NWA doesn't want to use wrestlers with hefty Japan commitments, plus Vader is close to signing a merchandising deal with Hasbro and the NWA is going to have a merchandising deal in 1990 with a rival toy company"
"There is talk that when the SST returns, it will be as a three-man team with Tonga Kid/Islander Tama who is Fatu's brother, as the third member of the team"
"Scott Steiner came out for his matches all black and blue in the face. I'm not exactly sure how this all transpires however the angle with Robin Green turning heel will air this weekend on TBS and the shows taped here air afterwards"
"On 9/16 in Kansas City, which drew about 2,500, the Flair vs. Slater main event with Harley Race as referee wound up with Muta attacking Race. I believe they will bring Race back for one match to team with Flair against Muta and Terry Funk in November, although I'm not certain of that but those in KC for the card appeared to think that was the case"
"Power Hour on 9/8 set an all-time record with a 2.2 rating with the 8-man tag (Warriors & Steiners vs. SST & Freebirds)"
"I've got to comment on this because it does explain a basic difference between the two groups. At least a dozen times this year alone, including at a live Clash special from Cleveland, I've seen NWA tapings with fans wearing WWF T-shirts in the first two rows. By those actions alone, obviously nobody is trying to pressure people into changing clothing because of paranoia of being afraid people will realize there is opposition. Ironically, it is the NWA, on its own TV, which acknowledges the WWF on Power Hour and in media interviews while the reverse is not true, the WWF pretends there is no such thing publicly, while privately try and book dates in the same cities in competition"
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Post by DSR on Mar 26, 2021 11:09:59 GMT -5
For whatever reason, I've always been under the impression that Cornette was about 10 years older than he actually was. Learn something new everyday.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2021 5:14:54 GMT -5
Oct 2, 89
"Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson gave their notice to the WWF at the TV tapings on Wednesday night in Louisville and will be leaving after the Survivor Series on Thanksgiving night to return to the NWA. If nothing else, this is the first time in recent memory that the NWA has actually raided the WWF for main-line talent and been successful"
"Truthfully, this has been a year without raids on either side as with the exception of the WWF signing up Tony Schiavone, a television announcer, neither side had raided the other for talent all year despite all sorts of rumors that constantly float around"
"While between now and Thanksgiving gives Titan plenty of opportunity to downplay Blanchard & Anderson, and I would say it is almost a certainty that unless they are persuaded to change their minds and stay, that the belts will be taken from them at the next set of television tapings, they will still leave the WWF as main-line talent, not top drawing talent but still as recent champions"
"While the loss won't hurt the WWF at all, except from the standpoint of front office headaches of trying to put together and market a few new heel teams (the Rougeaus are also leaving the WWF and the loss of both teams does leave the WWF with a sizable void in the heel tag team department), it should help fan perception of the NWA. Certainly it would cause some fans to at least question the NWA as minor league in comparison when the NWA can raid the WWF's tag team champions, or when it comes to pass, recent ex-champions away"
"Blanchard & Anderson had signed contracts with Titan when they arrived last year. The standard Titan contract for all newcomers is for two years, automatically renewable for a third year unless notice is given. Blanchard & Anderson have only been in the WWF for just over one year. While Blanchard & Anderson may have signed a different contract from most of the recent Titan signees, sources close to the situation have said that they do, in fact, have time remaining on their current contract"
"I do know that most of the WWF wrestlers didn't consider the NWA as a viable promotion since most of the information they were getting was that the organization was on its last legs, since brainwashing propaganda of the boys has been a long-time tool of management in many promotions probably since the beginning of time in the business"
"In recent months, the salary structure within Titan Sports, at least for the middle of the card wrestlers, has been lower than in the past, with the speculation being that the wrestlers no longer had any viable alternatives so there was no point in keeping the money up to the previous levels when the NWA was considered a viable alternative"
"From the NWA standpoint, presuming they are able to gain the services of Anderson & Blanchard for the Starrcade show, expect a re-uniting of the Four Horseman, with the new quartet for 1990 consisting of Anderson, Blanchard, Ole Anderson (who replaced Eddie Gilbert on the booking committee this past week and presumably will have an on-camera role as Lex Luger's manager) and Lex Luger, all of whom will feud with Ric Flair"
"Saturday night in Richmond, VA, the NWA ran a show and nine of the wrestlers (Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Tommy Rich, Freebirds, Road Warrior Hawk, Midnight Express and Terry Funk) couldn't appear because the Charlotte airport was closed due to Hurricane Hugo. No posters were put outside the building. In fact, as it turns out, the show had a huge walk-up and was the biggest crowd of the year in Richmond (Flair vs. Funk was still billed as the main event on television that afternoon even though Funk was "suspended" the week earlier although there was one voiceover during the show the last week which said if Funk was suspended that Gary Hart may have to put someone else in his place). Fans were told about the no-shows and told they could get a refund, which thousands did, but the refund line was an hour long and it left a bad taste in a lot of fans' mouths because they could have saved everyone hours of time if they had just put posters in the lobby telling the fans that most of the main eventers weren't going to be there"
"Despite rumors of Scott Norton being NWA bound, word we get is that Norton is working full-time in construction and is history when it comes to pro wrestling. Norton never officially quit the AWA, just stopped showing up. In a way to embarrass him, the AWA had Larry Zbyszko accept Norton's arm wrestling challenge just after Norton left the promotion, so now it will appear that Norton backed out when someone accepted the challenge"
"I've got to comment on the skit they aired involving Scott Steiner on the TBS wrestling show this past Saturday. The story line is that Rick Steiner asked for a TV camera crew to be there when he was to ask Robin Green "the big question." Rick hadn't arrived, but Scott was there with the crew when Robin rides up in a limo and invites Scott into the limo and when he gets in, three guys beat up Scott and throw him out of the car onto the pavement and one of them (who is obviously Kevin Sullivan because of his tree-trunk thighs) kicked Scott in the ribs several times. This may have been the biggest piece of garbage I've ever seen from a national promotion. How this was ever even let on the air is beyond me. It's not so much that the idea itself was bad, but the product that went out over the air was worse than bad"
"It was the first time in more than a year that I turned off an NWA TV show in disgust in the middle of a show (and with a Pillman vs. Gilbert match and Flair interview still to come). And this is someone who never once turned the Heenan show off in disgust. I don't even want to bring up why they would air something which looked like a criminal offense, and why there would be two cameramen there to film it and just quietly observe the proceedings and then fail to show the faces of the guys involved (all we saw was a massive leg kicking Steiner in the guts) even though most who called up could tell it was Butch Reed & Ron Simmons. If they could tell, why didn't they show the guys who did it?"
"The NWA will be running in competition with its own PPV show. The second hour of the TBS show on 10/28 will go head-to-head with the first hour of the Philadelphia PPV show"
"9/23 in Richmond, VA for the skeleton card with the no-shows because of the hurricane wound up with Ron Simmons pinning Scott Hall, Gilbert pinned Cuban, Shane Douglas pinned Rip Morgan, Norman the Lunatic pinned Johnny Ace, Steve Williams drew Mike Rotunda, Z-Man (Tom Zenk) beat Dick Slater and Sting returned to action and beat Muta via DQ"
"9/10 in Greensboro drew 5,000 (WWF was in nearby Winston-Salem the next night with Hogan vs. Savage drawing 2,500)"
"When people talk about raiding the WWF, they mean only the big names—Savage and Elizabeth or Roddy Piper for gate appeal or guys like Anderson, Hart, Blanchard, Hennig, etc. who wouldn't make an immediate difference in the gate but could work up to NWA standards and be pushed in meaningful angles down the road."
Oct 9, 89
"Most of the talk this week continues to center around the apparent return of Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson to the NWA after Thanksgiving. While rumors run rampant about wrestlers who "definitely will" follow or those who "may" follow, to the best of my knowledge as of press time, nobody else, with the exception of the Rougeau brothers, who aren't NWA bound, has given notice to Titan. It is expected, even within Titan circles, that one or two more wrestlers may follow, but no names are definite. I do know the NWA has talked with at least one and maybe more semi-major name, but to say anyone else is on the way would be presumptuous."
"The wrestling rumor mill (and keep in mind whenever wrestlers' salaries are discussed here that figures are probably worked) has it that Blanchard & Anderson will more than double their present WWF pay by making the jump, with the rumor mill saying they would be receiving a $250,000 per year deal with the NWA. That figure sounds high on the surface, and even those in Titan admit that Blanchard & Anderson would never be able to earn that kind of money in the WWF"
"Over this past week, the NWA was plagued with no-shows once again, one from an injury, another from a wrestler who had a tree through his house from the hurricane, another whose girlfriend was savagely attacked in an apartment burglary and on and on it goes"
"On Friday's Power Hour show, much of the show hypes the upcoming television shows over the weekend. For most of the show, they were talking about a series of matches for Sunday that actually appeared on the previous Sunday. It wasn't until late in the show that the mistake was realized and they began plugging the "right" Sunday show, which as it turns out, never aired anyway"
"For the Saturday show, we were promised a Ric Flair press conference, a Dan Spivey vs. Dick Murdoch match, an interview with Robin Green and Flair & Sting in a tag team match. The press conference never aired, although there was a report by Gordon Solie saying that Terry Funk had been reinstated (and that Ric Flair had paid Funk's $100,000 fine in order to get him back in the ring--please) and an interview with Flair that followed lasted about five seconds before it suddenly ended, there was a bunch of dead air, and the football scoreboard show aired. Flair & Sting never teamed although Flair did appear in the television opener in a singles match"
"Throughout the show they plug a Ric Flair vs. Dick Slater match for Sunday, which had also been plugged on Worldwide Wrestling the previous week for this weekend but instead Worldwide consisted mainly of matches that had already aired on previous cable shows"
"Sunday, through absolutely no fault of the NWA's, the Braves once again go into extra innings (at least it was their final game of the season) and NWA Main Event never airs. To make matters worse, after sitting through a baseball game, hoping it wound end and we'd see at least some of the wrestling show, when it does end, they air a commercial talking about the wrestling show and the Flair vs. Slater main event coming up next, and then they go to a movie instead of the wrestling show"
"Terry Funk started back on Wednesday even though the announcement of his suspension being lifted wasn't until TV on Saturday. At the house shows they said that the suspension was lifted on Monday, however Funk was being billed for cards everywhere when he was still announced on TV as suspended"
"Missing in action this week have included Jimmy Garvin (a tree went through his house during the hurricane), Brian Pillman (his girlfriend was stabbed four times by a burglar and was hospitalized), Road Warrior Hawk (personal problems) and Lex Luger (injured) although Hawk and Luger were back in action by the weekend"
"Newspaper and TV Guide ads for the PPV event on 10/28 include the names Ricky Steamboat and Paul E. Dangerously. Dangerously's name is at least understandable as he's been gone just a few weeks, but Steamboat's been gone since 8/1. These ads to have to be placed ahead of time, but changes and last minute editing can also be done a lot farther in advance than two months"
"A memo went out to the bookers that TBS wants no more blood or heavy unneccessary violence on its television shows, although the PPV shows will have no such restrictions. I guess this is why Jim Ross said on TV that parental discretion is advised on the PPV show"
"9/27 in Worcester, MA drew a horrendous $7,000 house (Titan drew a nearly as bad $25,000 house two nights earlier in a more expensive building to book)"
"TBS is apparently serious about the heavy violence being a no-no as promos were shot for last week's Power Hour showing the plastic bag stuff and none of them ever aired"
"The November PPV from Troy, NY is being called "New York Knockouts" and I'm afraid that meaning could be quite literal and not what they mean. The debut card in Troy on 9/28 drew just 1,300 fans and the crowd was "cold" for most of the show (except for Flair vs. Funk) and the lighting in the building is terrible so they are going to need a major overhaul to make the crowd seem into it and the lighting up to big show standards"
"Speaking of the Steiners, the interview they did over the weekend about the limo angle was about the most effective one I've seem them do, particularly Scott. That closed eye was pretty darn graphic as well and visually effective. Originally they wanted to use make-up for that effect like in the movies, but make-up runs when you sweat so if he wrestled with it on, it would look totally goofy. So he had Rick haul back and punch him right in the eye to shut it. I know most of you still won't believe that but it really is true. Brings up a few questions. What kind of guts/insanity does Scott have to stand there and take a blow like that without flinching? What kind of damage could Rick do if he actually was mad at someone? In the old days, before blading was popular, in some of the smaller circuits they occasionally did hardway blood in a similar manner, trying to throw legit bare-knuckle punches to the forehead to open it up"
"The actual skit which was supposed to have done the damage did have an explanation for the silliness and bad camera work. You can hear in the background the camera man say, "I'm going to get help" and he put down the camera which is why the lens didn't pick up Sullivan's face, so that was the explanation. Only problem is, almost nobody who saw the piece heard the camera man. Lots of comments on it this week. Vast majority didn't like it. Some liked it a lot, but even those who did like it thought it was a waste for the Steiners to be doing a program with Simmons & Reed"
"Terry Gordy has no scheduled return date for the NWA that I know of as they pressured him to give up Japan and obviously he wasn't about to do so"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2021 3:10:56 GMT -5
Oct 16, 89
"The expected change of the WWF tag team titles took place this past Monday night (10/2) at the TV tapings in Wheeling, WV as Demolition regained the titles from Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson. The change was expected, of course, since Blanchard & Anderson gave notice to the WWF at the previous set of tapings and will be headed to the NWA after the Survivors’ Series on Thanksgiving night. The match itself was taped for the "Superstars" show and will air in a few weeks....There was controversy in that technically Anderson was the legal man in the ring, but my guess is that was just a way to get Blanchard & Anderson to do the finish and that won’t be acknowledged when they put the commentary track on the match in upcoming weeks"
"While wrestlers in both the WWF and the NWA have mentioned to me that Bret Hart would be following Blanchard & Anderson as switching, the reports I've got are that saying that any deal has been reached would be premature. Supposedly the NWA and Hart are still nowhere near agreeing on a money figure, and there are still political reasons why I'd be surprised to see Hart make the move. As far as other names that have been rumored to be making the move, and may have even talked about making the move, apparently there hasn't been serious negotiations on the NWA side with any of them"
"In the upcoming weeks, I expect the NWA to issue some strict guidelines and I've already heard that TBS is unhappy with the double entendres that the announcers, particularly Jim Ross and Jim Cornette have done in regarding to comments on Missy Hyatt and later Robin Green, or whatever we are supposed to be calling her, and doesn't want any suggestions of "death" or "killing" no matter how heated the feud gets"
"Jim Herd of the NWA was quoted in last week's "Matwatch" that: "It (Scott Steiner angle) sure was too far and so was the bag. And you can quote me that we're going to bring these things under control at TBS. This is going to be a family show." "
"Apparently several PPV companies were quite unhappy about the "parental discretion advised" being said for the next PPV show to the point that at least one threatened to drop the show"
"The plastic bag incident has drawn a ton of ire, not only from those who complained to TBS, but from those at TBS itself, to the point that some promos which featured the plastic bag were pulled from the air a few weeks back. In addition, a promo package for the 10/28 PPV show for advertising on local cable stations, which also included the Terry Funk attack, was redone not to include the attack"
"I had no adverse reaction when watching the plastic bag thing but enough phone calls came to where I knew the angle hit a nerve with a lot of people. I was furious at the Steiner angle, more because I thought it was such bad television than anything else. At the same time, there are people who are trying to put together a PPV show when there are no match-ups built up to the point where a big show is ready to happen and when there just have been too many PPV shows. To make matters worse, after this show, there has to be enough heat coming out for another show less than six weeks later, which being Starrcade, should at least in theory, be the biggest show of the year"
"Nice to see so much mention of Paul Ellering on the commercials simply because he's the only guy in the promotion whose name rhymes with Sting"
"Gilbert and Missy are under contract through February and since these are six-figure deals, they would be foolish to walk out on them, even though Hyatt's last actual NWA appearance aired on TBS Saturday and she won't be around at all and Gilbert will be used to put over the top guys on TV and work prelims at the house shows"
"Dangerously was also under contract, but worked out a release of his contract with Jim Herd. Officially the WWF wouldn't make any offer to him (despite rumors of him already having signed with WWF) until they saw the NWA contract release because of tampering and anti-trust problems if they go after someone with a valid contract with their competitors. The carefulness they've displayed in this deal tells me that there is no way, at least right now, they would try and steal anyone with a valid NWA contract unless the NWA lets the guy out of his contract"
"Brian Pillman's girlfriend is "okay physically" after the stabbing attack on her in her apartment about 10 days back. Apparently the assailant turned out to be the maintenance man in the apartment"
"After the match Sting got on the house mic and called Muta and Hart "dipshits" "
"Flair beat Funk in 25:20 of the I Quit match ***3/4 but the ending really pissed off the fans. Flair juiced heavy and heat was incredible. Finish saw a ref bump, Flair put Funk in the figure four but no ref to bring the house mic into the ring to see if Funk would quit. Ole Anderson ran in with the house mic and he and Gary Hart started fighting and Flair and Ole ran Hart and Funk off. If Funk "quit," nobody in the building heard it or thought he did so fans felt ripped off with a count out finish of an I Quit match"
"Sid Vicious hurt both Ace and Douglas working with him over the New York weekend by potatoing Ace and re-injuring his face (although I don't think he had to miss work) and dropping Douglas wrong and nearly breaking his arm (he did miss a few matches and his arm is back in a sling again after he worked mid-week)"
"Rick Steamboat will apparently be suing the NWA over usage of his name and photos of him in the print ads for the 10/28 card in Philadelphia. While an argument can be made in that these ads may or may not have been taken before Steamboat left the NWA, a valid point for Steamboat is that at no time was he ever under contract past July 31st and thus until they had him re-signed, his name shouldn't have been used in advertising a card late in October"
Oct 23, 89
"While the Thunderdome cage is not a bad idea in itself, they've added so many different stipulations that most fans probably can't even keep up with all of them. Also, my own opinion is that the company wastes the value of the World champion and the title belt by putting on a big show and having the champion involved in something of this nature"
"The Road Warriors vs. Skyscrapers should mean something. It's a natural feud and one you would think people would want to see. But the house shows they've had that match at haven't drawn as well as the "normal" house shows in the same cities have drawn so, and I'm not blaming these guys because the whole promotion isn't drawing, but this match isn't exactly selling too many tickets"
"As for the Steiner Brothers vs. Doom, the best thing I can say is they are very smart not to let anyone know beforehand who Doom is, because then there would be absolutely no interest in this program. I don't know this for a fact, but one would assume they'll have Doom dressed up with masks or some sort of gimmicks so fans won't know it is Butch Reed & Ron Simmons, because if they can figure it out, there won't be any interest in these matches"
"Even though the SST are a great tag team and Sam Fatu can be a good worker, I don't see where three Samoans managed by Oliver Humperdink is going to help the NWA in any way, shape or form"
"The NWA's first appearance in Troy, just two weeks back, didn't draw well and the arena is not lit well for television purposes. Another problem at the last show in late September was that it is freezing inside the building. Imagine if that's the case, what it will be like in November, as they have ice underneath the floor since the facility is mainly used for Ice Hockey. That's not a big deal on television, because really only the spectators live will be cold and in that part of the country in November, they're used to it. But it does make those bumps and chops sting a lot more when it's cold and on a TV special, the wrestlers do normally put out that something extra. Also, when it is cold, the crowd usually doesn't react as well because their hands are in the pockets of their jackets"
"They are also acknowledging Tom Zenk as the Z-Man, which is an about-face from a few weeks back"
"Kazuo Sakurada (better known in the United States as Kendo Nagasaki) will debut at the TV tapings on Tuesday night in Marietta, GA as "The Dragon Master." His gimmick will be a shaved bald head, shaved eyebrows and he walks to the ring backwards and leaves his back to his opponent and when the foe attacks, he does a quick spin kick to nail him. Yes, he'll be managed by Gary Hart and team with Muta and basically is getting the spot Dick Slater lost as it appears he won't be returning here after going on the Japan tour. Those of you who thought Slater shouldn't have been pushed should be really thrilled at his replacement."
"Ric Flair pinned Terry Funk *** (advertised as a Texas Death match everywhere but turned out to be a regular match—how can they continue to do things like that?)"
"Funk pinned Pillman when Gary Hart was supposed to brush Pillman's foot off the ropes at the finish but Gary didn't get there on time and Pillman had to move his own foot off the ropes ***1/4"
"I realize, as the Mr. Mike saying goes, that Jesus Christ with an Etch-a-sketch couldn't draw in the NWA right now, but these well-below-average houses even with Warriors vs. Skyscrapers, Flair vs. Muta and Luger vs. Sting does not bode well for the direction the NWA is going in"
"Greensboro drew just 2,200 fans, which is horrendous considering the line-up"
"TBS digitalized Flair’s face (since he was bleeding) on the Friday night Power Hour match with Slater (good action but cheap walkout count out finish) so they are serious about no blood on television"
Oct 30, 89
"With the earthquake postponing the World Series until this coming Friday night, it means that Game Four of the series will go head-to-head with the NWA's "Halloween Havoc" pay-per-view show on Saturday night from Philadelphia. Between competition already with the Miami vs. Florida State football game on ESPN, things don't look good for the PPV success of this show"
"All sorts of figures are bandied around as far as the money that the World Championship Wrestling company lost during its first year. I don't want to list any figures because nobody who knows for sure is going to give out an honest figure anyway. Some figures could be pure propaganda either by competitors to lure wrestlers away or make them concerned over the future, propaganda to satisfy wrestlers to not worry about their future, or propaganda to talk them into taking a pay cut when the contracts start expiring early next year"
"Virtually all the same mistakes over the fall quarter of 1988, when Dusty Rhodes nearly totally sabotaged this group and left it for dead, are occurring today. Constant no-shows at the house shows without explanation. The same non-satisfying finishes month-after-month at the house shows. The same wrestlers being pushed month-after-month with little influx of new talent pushed to the top of the card. Terrible syndicated television shows. Poor local promotion of house shows. Angles on television having little to do with line-ups at the house shows. And advertised line-ups not taking place as promised, with gimmicks changing and matches changing with no explanation to the fans. That's just the problems with the live shows"
"Option No. 1 is continue the same course. We already know where that leads and it's simply throwing good money after bad. The general public will not support what it perceives as minor league wrestling. At least not to a great enough extent that it can be profitable carrying huge salaries and running nightly house shows"
"Option No. 2 is to fold up right now. That isn't going to happen. Short term economically one can argue that it could be justified, given the fact that this company being profitable in the foreseeable future is unlikely under any circumstances"
"Option No. 3 is to scale back and keep the promotion going as a regional minor league promotion. Let's be realistic about what that means. First off, even with cutting back the big salaries, a company of this type isn't going to be profitable. Every small promotion in this country is losing money right now and in its weakest state in history, save perhaps Don Owen in the Pacific Northwest and they are hardly doing any great shakes either"
"The final option is the most risky. It's the best one for the wrestling fans and for the wrestling business and certainly for the wrestlers. Guaranteed it will lose money at the beginning. As much, if not more than the NWA did this year. It's chances of success aren't good, particularly over the short haul. Over the long haul, if successful, this company could be quite profitable. That, of course, is to compete as a major league. Major league office. Major league promotion of live cards. Major league promotion of PPV cards (which is the one area that I would say they are very strong in already). Major league syndicated television. The one factor which could make this risk worthwhile is PPV television"
"Since the NWA is world's behind the WWF in every aspect except presentation of PPV shows and actual house show product they've got to improve all the weak areas. They need to be better than the WWF when it comes to marketing the big shows and television content"
"The best angles, particularly the PPV angles, are the ones that slowly develop. Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan had been set up for one year before Wrestlemania. Hogan and Zeus had five months of build-up before Summer Slam. Starrcade is supposed to be the big show of the year. It is now six weeks away, and nobody even knows what the line-up is and there is nothing that has had that long-term build-up necessary for the main event on the big show of the year"
"WWF got their card to the public on television for a Thanksgiving PPV show earlier than the NWA did for a show in late October"
"In most cities the NWA runs in live, the live fans usually don’t even know the card until two to three weeks in advance while with Titan it’s usually a solid five week build-up and the shows are promoted tons better in each of those five weeks"
"An administration is needed to remove the cut-throating which has killed any progress. All I hear about is how this guy doesn't know anything and that guy doesn't know anything. Well if that’s the case, then teach them, don't complain and try to back-stab"
"Wrestlers lost respect, at least some of them, when Sting got away before the Baltimore Bash with not putting Terry Funk over, even though it was necessary before that card to have Funk over as the ultimate heel for Flair's return. This hurt Funk, who quite frankly needed fans to think he was a killer heel from results in the ring more than most because of the age and size factor working against him, thus he had to do it all with nothing but talking"
"At the same time, Rick Steamboat put Lex Luger over every night, which was the right thing for the company since Luger needed to get over as the big heel for down the road. But when it was over. Steamboat's contract wasn't renewed. Admittedly, a lot of factors went into this but more than one person in the group and many outside made the connection"
"Sting didn't do the job and wouldn't help the company when the company needed help and he's still on top. Steamboat would, and he's gone. So much for doing jobs and helping the company"
"Right now the NWA is somewhat divided into two camps. The bookers vs. The management. The bookers feel management doesn't know anything about wrestling. They become resentful of the mandates, such as on the blood, the plastic bag angle or whatever. There is a belief among the wrestlers that anyone who isn't a wrestler is a mark, and so the complaint goes, they are managed by marks. Of course one can argue that Vince McMahon Sr., Vince McMahon Jr., Sam Muchnick, Frank Tunney and Hisashi Shinma combined don't have 30 seconds of in-ring experience, and they all did quite well in producing and directing over the long haul"
"The TBS shows for this Saturday and the following Saturday were taped on 10/17 in Marietta before a full house of 1,800 fans. Gordon Solie did the commentary during the first show since they "went to Jim Ross" live in Philly during the show. The show consisted of 24 squash matches"
"Doom wore masks similar to the mask Big Van Vader's wears in Japan. I'm told everyone in the building knew one was Ron Simmons and most, but not everyone, thought the other was Butch Reed. They didn't look bad, but they didn't look as menacing as they needed to with that name and gimmick and some fans laughed at them"
"Apparently even the marks started looking to the back when Gene Anderson would come out knowing it was the signal to go to the finish"
"Upon executive orders, TBS has eliminated all blood on television, whether it be TBS, syndicated shows or even PPV shows. Ric Flair does an interview that airs on Saturday on TBS guaranteeing the blood and sweat of his opponents at the PPV"
"NWA Main Event was the highest rated wrestling show on cable drawing a 2.6 rating with the Lex Luger vs. Steve Williams hitting a 3.1 which is the highest rating anyone in either federation has done this year opposite the NFL. World Championship Wrestling was a 2.2 while Power Hour was a 2.1. The two-hour WCW show had a different trend. Usually wrestling shows have their largest viewing audience in the final 15 minutes, but this thing peaked early in the show and plummeted in the second hour, losing 30 percent of its audience by the time it was over"
"Chris Cruise debuted as an announcer on Worldwide Wrestling. His voice is certainly good. I didn't notice anything at all wrong with his performance, not anything spectacular, but Jim Ross pretty much overshadowed him on the first show. It'll be different when he's on his own, which is the plan starting shortly, or at least put him with another wrestler as color guy. Cruise's background is not in sports announcing, but in doing anchor work for a CNN division and working for the Armed Forces News Service"
"The Midnight-Dudes feud seems to be the only "fresh" thing on television here"
"My personal preference is hardly the NWA, although in this country it would be, simply because they have a lot better matches with a lot more frequency than the WWF. I'm a fan of good wrestling, and should be allowed to be a fan, because if I'm no longer a fan, there would be no Observer. I enjoy the in-ring product of the NWA and the live shows of the NWA quite a bit more than the WWF, by and large. But I enjoy the promotional work of the WWF and overall organization far more than the NWA"
"If both groups ran shows on the same night and I felt they were of equal calibre, I'd attend the NWA show because by and large the wrestlers put out more and across the board are better workers"
"Pavlov's Dogs? That thought came to me at a WWF television taping a few years back when a babyface won, using his big move, and there was no crowd reaction at all, despite the fact it was a heavily pushed and seemingly over act. When the music came on, late, because of a backstage screw up, the place went bonkers, but the crowd reacted to the music, not to the wrestling, and to the music immediately throughout the night. I've later seen this same thing happen dozens of times. Recently at a Titan show, a heel cheated to beat a face and when they announced the winner, they played the face music and everyone cheered on cue"
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Mar 28, 2021 3:44:50 GMT -5
For whatever reason, I've always been under the impression that Cornette was about 10 years older than he actually was. Learn something new everyday. Yeah, I want to say he began managing at either 17 or 19, one of those two, since he had been a photographer for Memphis prior to that. He lucked out in that the Jarrett family took a liking to him, and Jimmy Hart was such a huge act that he basically needed a second heel manager around to pick up some of the excess. He was like 21 or something when he got sent to Watts with Eaton and Condrey since Watts needed younger guys around to try to bring in more female audience members. Yes, Cornette was pushed as a relative "pretty boy" at one point. I guess next to guys like Grizzly Smith, he was going to be a more attractive option.
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Mozenrath
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Post by Mozenrath on Mar 28, 2021 3:52:02 GMT -5
Interesting, wonder what made him decide to come back. Betting he's glad he did, given the amount of money he likely made during the '90s, especially in Japan.
God, how did Meltzer not get an aneurysm during the Russo era?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2021 5:11:41 GMT -5
Nov 6, 89
"The National Wrestling Alliance's string of excellent pay-per-view events ended on Saturday night in Philadelphia. "Halloween Havoc" was far from the worst pay-per-view event in history, But from a live perspective, the card came off like just another ordinary night of NWA wrestling. There just wasn't the aura of specialness to the card. While the promotion put together the most creative batch of television commercials ever for a major show, the backbone of the NWA, the great wrestling action on the big shows, wasn't there"
"Usually in a situation where a major event doesn't live up to expectations, it is criticism time. But really, I don't have any criticism other than the NWA simply wasn't ready to do a PPV card on October 28. I don't think the fans were ready, and the buy rate will be the answer to that one. But the feuds and grudges and story lines weren't ready on October 28 to peak. So to make up for this, the promotion built a cage. Or should I say three strange men somewhere in a blacksmith shop high in the mountains put together one of the most bizarre cages ever and a unique Thunderdome match was made the selling point"
"Rotunda got Zenk in a head scissors and the "boring" chants started. The fans were cheering when Rotunda worked Zenk over although they also cheered the finish when Zenk won. I think they were cheering more just because the match was over"
"Tommy Rich pinned Cuban Assassin with the Thesz press in 8:26. The fans booed Rich and were chanting "boring" quite a bit. Actually, they chanted boring before the match even started and never gave it a chance"
"The fans cheered the Freebirds vehemently and booed everything the Dudes did. The better the Dudes looked, the more they booed. My impression was that it was more the fans hated the Dudes, and more to the point, hated the idea that Jim Cornette was with the Dudes, more than they liked the Freebirds. Jim Garvin was loving it because all he had to do was look at the crowd and they would go crazy"
"Douglas was actually working with his right arm broken in two places and hadn't worked in two weeks (since re-injuring an already injured arm). Considering he had to do some moves left-handed, which created timing problems, it explains the missed moves"
"At 1:47, an eight-year-old in front of me told his friend that they were Butch Reed & Ron Simmons under the mask and everyone in the building probably figured it out shortly thereafter"
"Doom won't get over, but the fans really get into the Steiners"
"The place popped big when Scott did the Mata headscissors move (somebody should come up with a better name for it than that)"
"Luger got some boos but they were drowned out by the much louder cheers. Pillman's cheers weren't as loud, but he got no boos at all. In contrast with the Rick Steamboat matches, the crowd was far more vehement in the Steamboat matches (those who cheered and booed Steamboat and Luger in those bouts did so with a passion), while the Tommy Rich matches, nobody cared at all about the matches and only reacted to what Luger did"
"When Luger came out, they played a taped chant of "Luger, Luger" that was taped a few days earlier in another city, and also put a huge sign which said "Luger, Luger, Luger" facing the crowd in the back (but behind the TV cameras) in order to get the crowd to chant his name. The crowd didn't chant his name anyway although he still got a very big and predominantly positive reaction. What is the logic in this? First off, the guy is a heel that no matter what they do, they can't get the fans to boo. So then they try special effects and brainwashing to get the fans to cheer him to make the people at home think he's even more of a face than he is when the object they've been trying is to get people not to like him"
"I think seeing Vicious in the ring next to the Warriors and seeing just how much bigger he was than everyone else gets him over just that much more. He's the most impressive "monster" specimen in the business and he's every bit as poor in working a match as he is impressive just standing there"
"Ironically, since this is the complaint made here about WWF crowds, but when it was announced that the Warriors had won, there was no crowd pop, but about 30 seconds later when the music hit, the crowd popped for the music"
"The cage looked awesome with tree branches, a Tarzan swinging rope inside, dragons facing outward, cobwebs and a mailbox on one side (I was at least expecting an address of 1313 Mockingbird Lane). The cage was so visually impressive that it took your concentration away from the match"
"Before the match started, the dragons started breathing smoke and somehow the smoke caught some cloth on the side of the cage near the top and a fire broke out. This wasn't planned, and poor Tommy Young had to climb up the cage and put the fire out with his hand (ouch) and a guy with a fire extinguisher running behind Young in case he didn't get the job done. After the fire was out, Muta blew the mist, but apparently on TV it looked like it was just a spot for Muta to blow the fire out with the mist"
"There was no blood in this match (save for Funk's hand which bled quite a bit for a hand cut) by orders not only from TBS but also from Pennsylvania state law. When the commission was dropped, a law was placed in the books that any blading could result in loss of license for the promotion. While nobody has called anyone on it yet, and they've done blood on every NWA show in Pittsburgh of late without the commission jurisdiction, apparently there was a warning before the show that the law would be enforced tonight, and if violated, the implied threat was the penalty (loss of license by the NWA for the state of Pennsylvania) would be enforced"
"I guess for some, the sight of Sammartino raising Flair's hand had some historical significance. But I think the majority of the crowd and audience were lost on the significance of Flair, Sammartino and Funk in the same ring for the first time"
"There were no great matches except the main event. They were expecting more from such a major hyped show. The card was basically the quality of an average NWA house show, just with more impressive ring introductions thrown in. In fact, the last time I was in Philadelphia for the July 22nd house show, that "normal" card was much better than this PPV show"
"During the Luger-Pillman match, they had cheerleaders come out with Pillman and during the match they ran around the lower deck trying to get fans to cheer for Pillman and all it did was take fans "out" of the match because they were watching the cheerleaders. That may be why there was no intensity in the crowd during the build-up phase, and even a "boring" chant during that match before they went to the hot last few minutes"
"The card for Starrcade '89 on Dec. 13 from the Omni in Atlanta, which is the NWA's next PPV event, will be two "King of the Hill" round-robin tournaments. The singles tournament will have Ric Flair, Sting, Lex Luger and the Great Muta. The tag team tournament will have the Road Warriors, Skyscrapers, Steiners and Doom. The rules are that everyone has to wrestle everyone else, so it insures unique match-ups like Flair vs. Sting, Luger vs. Muta, Warriors vs. Steiners that fans would normally never get to see. It also insures the first Flair vs. Luger match, although it will be non-title"
"My own thoughts is that for Starrcade, the biggest show of the year, is you need a main event with a long build-up, more focusing on individual matches than this idea will allow, stronger grudges than this format will allow and the key titles on the line, if nothing else, to get the importance of the titles over"
"Those will be, as it stands now, the only matches on the card, so you'll have an NWA PPV event without The Freebirds, Midnight Express, Pillman, Dr. Death, Tully Blanchard or Arn Anderson (who I believe will be starting up on Christmas day in Charlotte as babyfaces)"
"Expect to see these matches on television over the next few weeks as part of the ratings sweeps: Freebirds vs. Steiners for the NWA tag team title, Ric Flair vs. Bobby Eaton (which will be the first time these two have ever worked a singles match), Steve Williams vs. Sid Vicious and Great Muta vs. Tommy Rich"
"With Terry Funk being retired after the 11/15 Clash card, his spot in Gary Hart's Army will be taken by Buzz Sawyer. Sawyer can be one of the best workers around, but his track record shows that it's quite a risk using him, particularly in such a key position over the long haul"
"Kangaroo Athletic Wear will be doing a major promotion with the NWA besides coming out with the new shoes bearing the names of Ric Flair, Sting, Road Warriors, Rick Steiner and Lex Luger. They will have life-sized posters of the six wrestlers on display at sporting good stores throughout the country plus will be marketing Sting make-up kits, Ric Flair combs, Lex Luger sunglasses and Road Warrior spiked bracelets"
"The contract with the NWA specifies that Kangaroo gets 10 days per year with each of the wrestlers for promotional work and they'll have a party for the Kangaroo execs and have the company bigwigs in attendance at the 11/18 St. Louis card. They'll see a lot of empty seats since only 250 tickets were sold for that card as of Monday"
"The Skyscrapers missed one or two shots as well and have talked with Titan. Titan isn't as thrilled as you would think about Sid. Everyone knows he's going to be one of the biggest stars of the 90s, but he hurts people in the ring and that's the last thing they want"
"Seven wrestlers were fined $1,000 apiece for missing a show in Charleston, WV"
"All sorts of rumors about guys leaving Titan after Thanksgiving, but the only ones I know of are Rougeaus and Blanchard & Anderson. Where would anyone else go? With the exception of Hart, apparently NWA hasn't seriously talked with anyone and they are nowhere near a deal. And the way the business is now, unless you are like the Rougeaus who simply want to go home and quit traveling, you don't quit Titan until you've got a firm deal with the NWA or Japan or you stand a good chance of winding up with nothing"
"NWA had its best ratings weekend in many moons the weekend before the PPV show, which may bode well for the PPV doing better than anticipated. World Championship Wrestling on 10/21 got a 2.6 rating, which is the highest since March, while the Power Hour on 10/20 set a new record with a 2.6 rating and NWA Main Event on 10/22 got a 2.5"
Nov 13, 89
"The difference in Philadelphia as to Live vs. Memorex stems from both crowd factors and show factors. The Tom Zenk vs. Mike Rotunda match live was ruined because it was a late arriving crowd and people were coming in during the match (which explains why the WWF always advertises its starting times for its house show as 15 to 30 minutes earlier than the PPV starts and gives a non-televised prelim match) and because those who were there didn't care about the match"
"The line-up sheet inserted in the program had the matches correctly but inexcusably failed to list Steiners vs. Doom & Luger vs. Pillman"
"Steiners vs. Doom was better on tape. Live, a few things were apparent. First, since almost everyone in the building knew who Doom was, there was a "let down" feeling in the crowd once they got past the hot opening sequence. Woman has gotten the biggest push of any heel Woman in wrestling in a long time, and she's great to look at, but that's where it ends. She didn't even attract close to the heat that regular female valets with nowhere near the push normally get. It took away from the match although watching the "work" itself on tape, it was certainly an above average match"
"Luger vs. Pillman was much better on PPV than live. One problem live was the Cheerleaders running around the floor distracted the fans from the match. Another is simply that it was an impatient crowd, and the chants of "boring, boring" in the first half were noticeable live even though the match built as well as any match of the night and the final few minutes were hot"
"As bad as Rich vs. Cuban seemed on PPV, it was even worse live. They should have opened with that match and maybe the arriving crowd wouldn't have been so distracting during Zenk vs. Rotunda (which still should have been a better match than it was, but I wouldn't call it bad or anything)"
"Road Warriors vs. Skyscrapers has two distinct connotations when you say it to fans. A lot of people ooh and aah about the big monsters going against each other and envision it as a fantasy-type war. Others think of a bunch of guys not selling for each other and it would be terrible. The truth, as always, is in between"
"Really, whether one liked or disliked the show in many cases came down to the main event. Strictly based on what the guys did, it was an excellent match. Based on what had been advertised and promised, it was a flop saved only by the fact that the action was good. There is only one finish to the old Coward Waves the Flag rules match, and that was it. But on tape that finish looked like the screw-job that it was. Live, the crowd was ready for the finish when it came and popped big for it. But if you were paying to see how brutal it would get before someone throws in the towel, you'd feel ripped off even though the babyfaces won"
"There were gimmicks set up to where if you touched certain parts of the cage it would make your hair stand up on end, but the electricity to those special effects were turned off when the fire marshall ordered the plug pulled on the cage after the pre-match fire. And one was promised the most violent match ever and with the blood ban, the effect of what they were selling wasn't there. There was no logical reason for all the cage climbing. Anyway, it's easy to understand why a lot of people were not happy with this main event, and equally easy to see why a lot of people were happy with it."
"An interesting note is that a lot of people commented, based on the "special effects" ring entrance of Lex Luger (they played a tape of fans chanting "Luger, Luger" while he came in to give the effect that the fans were actually chanting his name, which they weren't, even though they were being led to do so with the large banners and the soundtrack chant being piped into the building) that Luger was the most over personality and should replace Flair as champion (which is subject for a completely different story at another time)"
"TV ratings were way up last weekend with the NWA Main Event show on 10/29 (Ric Flair vs. Mike Rotunda which was a better match than anything on PPV save the main event) drawing a 3.5 rating which is the highest rating for the NWA in that time slot since a Sting & Luger & Windham vs. Flair & Anderson & Blanchard 6-man tag in April of 1988 drew a 3.7 rating. World Championship Wrestling on 10/28 drew a 2.5 (misleading because first hour drew a 2.7, then about 200,000 homes tuned out second hour but that's about the same number of homes as tuned into the PPV) while Power Hour did a 2.1 on 10/27 (tied for second best rating ever)"
"Kevin Sullivan was pulled from the "Woman and Doom" angle by order of Jim Herd the day before the PPV show. Reason I was given was they (not the booking committee, which had its hands tied at this point, but management) felt Sullivan would remove heat from Woman, so his TV appearances with Doom this past weekend will be his last although he will work in prelims at the house shows starting next month"
"Rick & Scott Steiner took the NWA tag belts on 11/1 at Center Stage in Atlanta but it won't air until 11/18 on TBS. I don't, know this as a fact, but I'm assuming the change won't be acknowledged until that weekend and they'll bill The Freebirds vs. Road Warriors match on 11/15 at the Clash as a "title match." "
"If you saw the WWF tag title change this past weekend, you saw the "promise" that the finish would be presented as controversial due to pinning the wrong man reneged upon. It all evens out. Blanchard & Anderson when they gave notice claimed they were leaving because of a Japanese offer, not to go to the NWA and Titan folks still swear they aren't NWA bound as they were still claiming to the office staff they weren't going as late as this past week, but they are"
"Was amazed to see Starrcade ads all over TBS this weekend with the complete line-ups and everything"
"Can you name one masked act that has gotten over since the "new era" began? Doom won't either. Today's fans equate masks with jobbers, a fact reinforced both by WWF and NWA for the past five years and these guys aren't good enough to change that perception"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2021 4:57:02 GMT -5
Nov 20, 89
"The World Wrestling Federation fired Tully Blanchard just weeks before he was scheduled to finish up. No official reason was given for the move, which took place after the TV taping on 11/1 in Wichita which included a taping for the WWF Prime Time Wrestling special which aired on the USA network both on Sunday and Monday nights. Blanchard had a match on the show scheduled against the Anabolic Warrior, and no doubt they wanted the clean job on television and we had received word before the taping that no way Blanchard was going to do it. It wound up with Blanchard in the position of being pinned but a DQ finish when Arn Anderson ran in"
"It had been assumed that the reason both Blanchard and Anderson, who will start appearing on NWA television shows the first week of December, stayed on with the WWF was because Vince McMahon wouldn't release them from their contract unless they stayed through the PPV show, and also because they wanted to stay through the same show and get the big one-day payoff from it (pay-offs last year for Survivors ranged from $2,500 to $7,500, with no doubt Hulk Hogan and maybe Randy Savage getting significantly more)"
"Whether it was because he didn't do the job (and he did everything but), or more likely, because the WWF simply wanted Blanchard out of its dressing rooms because it was well known that he was a major influence in getting WWF wrestlers to look into going to the NWA (an exodus of which never materialized because the NWA heads, Jack Petrik and Jim Herd didn't want to start up a raiding game that would escalate salaries of all the major wrestlers plus McMahon refused to let others out of their contracts and nobody was willing to test contracts), Blanchard was gone and will be replaced by Haku in most of his scheduled arena show appearances the rest of the way against Demolition"
"Every show the NWA did this past year that drew more than $70,000 was with Funk opposing Ric Flair in the main event, either in singles matches, or in the tag team match on the PPV event from Philadelphia. Both Pay-per-views he headlined were financially successful, at a time when the NWA wasn't so successful"
"The NWA is also working on booking its Feb. 25 PPV show. Cities I've heard mentioned were St. Louis, at the Fox Theater (Theater was already booked that date and refused to make a change, this was the NWA’s first choice and would have been a bad choice because the acoustics for sound in wrestling are hideous since the place is built for all crowd noise to be muffled and all stage noise is magnified—a few years back Bruiser Brody ran a show there and even when the wrestlers whispered spots, you could hear it all over the building), Richmond (which would get great heat as its a lively crowd and one that used to resoundingly boo Ric Flair when he was a heel even tho he was half-cheered everywhere else, in other words, if they are concerned about the "wrong" reactions and they are, this is the safest site), Baltimore (best to draw a big gate, but they may be wary of running too many big shows there), Tampa or New Haven (the only reason I could think of they would even consider this one is because it is so close to the headquarters of Titan Sports)"
"The Atlanta Constitution reported on Wednesday that the NWA had signed up Jorge Gonzales, a 7-foot-6, 380-pound former member of the Argentinian national basketball team. Gonzales was originally a draft choice of the Atlanta Hawks, but was deemed to be neither in good enough condition nor tough enough under the boards to survive in the NBA. Jim Ross of the NWA had been pressuring the group to sign the guy and try and market him as a new, and much taller version of Andre the Giant"
"Gonzales was actually signed nearly two months back, but it was kept hush-hush because the NWA feared the embarrassment in case the guy never progresses to where he even wrestles, and those close to the organization are said to be pretty unhappy the story leaked. Gonzales was signed to a three-year contract and is training in Florida with Hiro Matsuda, and may also be doing some training in Virginia with Lou Thesz. The hope is that his debut could be a last minute surprise, at the NWA's February PPV show"
"As expected, the 11/12 card in Amarillo headlined by Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk drew a sellout (told the crowd was 6,500 but I don't think the building holds that much). The crowd booed Flair heavily and cheered Funk"
"The NWA program in the Joe Pedicino column mentioned that Ron Simmons was one of the Doom team"
"World Championship Wrestling on 11/4 drew a 2.9 rating which is the highest since a January show which had Windham vs. Gilbert and Steiner vs. Rotunda"
"Several cable companies reported a significant number of phone calls on Halloween night for Halloween Havoc, so the name did confuse some people into thinking the show was on the 31st"
Nov 27, 89
"Clash of the Champions: New York Knockout from Troy, NY became only the second big show to earn a 100 percent favorable rating in the Observer telephone poll. As of Monday, between letters and phone calls, the Clash drew 395 thumbs ups and zero thumbs downs, with calls coming in at a record pace heaping mountains of praise on not only Funk, but the overall show as well"
"Ironically, the Clash started out looking like anything but what it wound up being. Just about everything looked like it was going to go wrong during the first half hour. As expected beforehand, the biggest problem was the location. The live crowd in Troy, NY, which numbered about 4,000 (heavily papered) in the 5,800-seat RPI Fieldhouse, was unresponsive for the first two matches, which made the matches come off flat on television. Considering the Road Warriors were in one of those matches, things didn’t bode well for the card. Truthfully, the card started out looking like a rerun of a Wrestlemania from Trump Plaza, something the NWA could ill afford at this time"
"When Shane Douglas did a dive over the top rope onto Bobby Eaton during the Midnight Express vs. Dynamic Dudes match, the crowd suddenly woke up. The finish of that match, with Jim Cornette double-crossing the Dudes and turning heel and going back with the Express by hitting Douglas with the tennis racquet, drew the biggest crowd pop not only live, but probably in a few million homes watching on television as well. From that point on, the card sailed. Two outstanding matches with the Steiners vs. Skyscrapers and Lex Luger vs. Brian Pillman preceded the main event, another in the long line of Match of the Year candidates for 1989"
"Officially the Clash special did a 4.9 rating and a 7.8 share overall, which translates into 2,507,000 homes during an average minute. It was the third highest rating of the nine Clash specials, but since TBS has grown in the number of homes served in the past year, the actual number of viewers was second only to the first Clash (Flair vs. Sting 45 minute draw from Greensboro on March 27, 1988) which averaged 2,560,000 homes"
"The Freebirds beat the Road Warriors via DQ in 5:18. Originally this match was billed as for the NWA tag team titles, however the Birds had dropped the titles to the Steiner Brothers on 11/1 in Atlanta. That match didn't air on television until 11/18. Everyone expected they would take the WWF route and pretend the belts hadn't changed hands until the change was viewed on television, thus the Freebirds would come out with the belts and be announced as champions. Instead, they made an attempt to both "hide" the result of the match that still hadn't aired on TV, but still not lie and bill the Birds as champions. The Birds didn't come out with the belts, nor were they acknowledged by the commentators as champs. There was a graphic during their intro listing them as champs, which was a mistake but the subject of the belts was never brought up by the announcers"
"They named the move Scott Steiner does where he does the forward flying head scissors and spins the guy over in mid-air (The Raul Mata headscissors) and call it the "Frankensteiner." Now what about that blockbuster suplex?"
"Fans were behind Midnights all the way, even though they were playing heels. This will probably be the case for at least the beginning of all their matches around the horn because nobody likes the Dudes anymore"
"Originally Williams was to face Cuban Assassin and Tom Zenk was to face Super Destroyer, who was to be Bill Irwin. Then it was decided to eliminate the Williams-Cuban match, except nobody told Williams, who came to Troy anyway. Irwin left for Japan for the tag team tournament, so the designated sub was that man of 1,000 identities. Secret Service Jacko Russian Assassin Blackmailer Victory, adding yet another alias to his ever growing resume. Zenk arrived late to Troy and was pulled from the show in favor of Williams"
"By the way, in an interview just before the match, Flair said that if he were to lose the match, that he’d be "through in this sport." This was too late to mean anything as far as ratings, but would have added another aspect to the match except that any thinking fan would "know" Flair was going to win all along with the Starrcade ads billing him in the tournament and not Funk"
"It appeared to me that this show finally established the Steiners as the top babyface tag team in the promotion, supplanting the Road Warriors"
"Those live said the production crew created a genuine miracle in getting the dingy and poorly lit RPI Fieldhouse transformed into a modern well-lit facility"
"I was most impressed with how the wrestlers, through good work and hot angles saved what could have been a very bad show. The place started out like Trump Plaza. It was the wrong location to be doing such a major live special in. But everyone came out smelling like a rose"
"Many comments that this show was better than Halloween Havoc and should have been the PPV while Havoc should have been the free TV special. Got to disagree. The big angles should be shot before your largest audience, and for the NWA, the largest audience is the Clash specials. The WWF shoots its biggest angles on NBC, not on its PPV shows"
"As of press time, Tully Blanchard is no longer coming into the NWA. Arn Anderson is set to debut at Center Stage in Atlanta on 11/29 after finishing up Thanksgiving night for the WWF. His television debut, as Ric Flair's "big surprise" will air on 12/9 and Anderson should be hitting the NWA house shows starting Christmas day."
"NWA officials are claiming that hiring Blanchard right now could be a potential public relations nightmare so they are backing off. The official reason given by the WWF for dismissing Blanchard was that he failed a drug test (no jokes here about him failing because they couldn't find any steroids in his system). The NWA felt it could put them in an embarrassing position if word got out that they hired someone that the WWF fired for using drugs. My suspicion is there is a lot more to this story than meets the eye. I believe the drug test was a convenient excuse for the WWF to use because they wanted him out of their dressing rooms"
"The NWA very likely considers the acquisition of Blanchard & Anderson as a whole lot less of a coup today than it did when they were tag team champions and gave notice back in early September. McMahon was able to successfully "destroy" the two on television leading up to their planned NWA arrival, and did succeed in making it look like the NWA is bringing in two more WWF rejects ala Butch Reed and JYD rather than stealing tag team champions"
"Blanchard has been in the wrestling business for 14 years, many of them in the front lines of promotional wars in Texas. He should have known Titan was going to use him to set an example for other wrestlers who were contemplating making the big jump. And they succeeded in doing so in more ways than one. When people are looking at destroying you, you've got to be careful enough not to give them the ammunition"
"Actually, if Blanchard were to swallow his pride and go through rehab (whether he needs it or not isn't the issue here, this entire game is politics, not dealing with an alleged drug problem), my guess is the NWA would take him. Whatever p.r. problems this potentially could cause would be averted (even though in reality the odds are very slim any such problem would ever crop up) and the NWA would politically be able to look like the group who is giving someone who has tried to face his problems a second chance"
"Relations between the two sides started failing apart last February when All Japan sent Tenryu to Cleveland for the Clash of the Champions and the NWA came up with a scenario where the opponents of Tenryu & The Road Warriors were "locked in the dressing room." This totally embarrassed All Japan in the Japanese media since the match was taped for television and it made Tenryu look like a party to a circus sideshow rather than a sporting event as pro wrestling is treated in Japan. The last vestige of the relationship seemed to be destroyed a few weeks later when the NWA sent Rick Steamboat to Japan to defend the title. All Japan used Steamboat in the middle-of-the-card against mainly prelim wrestlers except on one night of the tour, instead of as a main eventer"
"After at least two "shoot" comments on recent television interviews, it has become something less than top secret that the No. 1 divisive point right now in the NWA is Ric Flair. The TBS organization has decided it wants to build the promotion around Lex Luger and Sting as soon as possible and Flair may be in the biggest fight of his career to stay on top. This is going to turn into a major issue in 1990 and one where there is no correct answer. It's one of gut feelings. I can sit here and give you plenty of reasons why Flair should be kept as the top man in the promotion. I can also sit here and give you just as many reasons why he shouldn't be. I've heard arguments from both sides. There are logical reasons for each point of view, and some reasons that probably have as much emotional and personal connotations rather than what would be best for business"
"Measuring a promotion's success can be determined by house shows, television ratings and PPV buy rates. House shows are poor. TV ratings have rebounded strongly of late. PPV has stayed surprisingly steady. (Before I forget, officially the PPV from Philadelphia drew a 1.77 percent buy rate, which is about 200,000 orders and just over $3 million in gross revenue. I'm told the gross revenue and total buys were slightly better than any previous NWA PPV event, which surprised just about everyone)"
"While the house shows aren't doing well, when Flair came back in August, the houses were generally better than in July, during the heavily-hyped and traditionally strong Bash series, with much stronger undercards in July with Luger as the top star"
"If Luger was made champion, he wouldn't be able to draw against anyone but Flair--evidence is the Luger-Sting matches thus far have drawn well-below-average houses when Flair was working with Muta (who has no business being the main event heel)"
"For the NWA to make it, they need to make their top stars celebrities. Of the wrestlers in the NWA, the only ones whose personalities are strong enough to get over consistently in that environment are Flair and Jim Cornette. What can Luger do on a talk show except take off his shirt, which may get him one invite but there is no reason to invite him back? What can Sting do?"
"When the Kangaroos folks had a deal with Steiner, Warriors, Sting, Luger and Flair, the comments of the execs were that the other guys had no personalities and were what they expected as wrestlers. But Flair was different. He impressed them"
"Based on what I've seen of late, I've got a good deal of confidence in Luger. Not nearly so much in Sting as far as being the No. 1 guy, but I believe Luger can pull it off. Ray Charles could see this weekend that Luger is being groomed for the spot. I say give him the chance, but don't bury Flair in the process. Keep the two as somewhat equals, with Luger as the heel champ, but Flair as the challenger that fans are led to believe could take Luger when the big match takes place. Give Sting the chance to be a challenger for Luger as well"
"Put Luger over at Starrcade, since he's going to get the title shot at the next PPV. But have Luger win the tournament in this fashion—he beats Muta and somehow screws Sting but gets pinned by Flair. Flair loses the tournament, however, because he gets DQ'd against Muta and goes to a draw with Sting. Sting pins Muta in the other match, and save Sting vs. Luger for the last match. Luger wins the tournament, but he was pinned clean by Flair. Who is the top guy? That gets answered in the rematch. When Luger wins the strap, and somehow during the interim Sting gets the U.S. strap, you've got two challengers that fans know can win the title--Flair and Sting. At that point the fans will determine, based on the box office, who the top babyface is"
"TV ratings still on the upswing. Power Hour on 11/10 shattered its old record with a 2.9 rating (previous best was 2.6), while World Championship Wrestling (Sid Vicious vs. Steve Williams main event) drew a 2.9, which ties the previous week and the second highest of the year while NWA Main Event drew a 2.4 (Tommy Rich & Eddie Gilbert vs. Midnight Express)"
"Promoters Elliot and Carl Murnick were fired by TBS and Sandy Scott was demoted from being a promoter to being in charge of the rings getting from city-to-city. Chip Burnham of TBS, Gary Juster and Tim Willett will be the event coordinators for the future. My guess is with Burnham new to the position that he'll make some rookie mistakes early. Long run? Wait and see. Ralph Freed was also dumped which ends the several decade long relationship of Fred Ward Promotions in Columbus, GA and the NWA. The demotion of the Murnicks (who are trying to get in with Titan Sports now) ends a long era as well, as their father, Joe Murnick, was the half-owner of Jim Crockett Promotions with Jim Crockett Sr. when the territory was built"
"There is no guarantee that you will ever see Jorge Gonzales (El Gigante) in a wrestling ring. Word I get is that if he can work enough to be worth something, he'll get a shot. If not, you'll never hear the name again. The WWF had also been actively recruiting Gonzales, and my guess is that if he had gone with them, work would have meant nothing. NWA is crossing its fingers hoping he can be introduced to the TV audience at the next Clash (February 6 in Corpus Christi) and maybe debut on the February 25 PPV show (which apparently will be from the Greensboro Coliseum)"
"The Road Warriors agreed to return for the option year of their contract so they are signed with the NWA through December 9, 1990, which should end any rumors of them going anywhere else. From what I'm told, terms were the same as last year, $2,000 per match for each Warrior and $1,100 for Paul Ellering and 250 dates per year, which means they trail probably only Flair and Hogan as the highest paid wrestlers in North America"
"They finally got the second tag belt for the Steiners"
"My own belief is that a lot of the negative reaction to Halloween Havoc was because people compare it with so many big shows this year that were more outstanding, rather than taking it for what it was by itself, a better-than-average and fairly entertaining night of wrestling"
"Eddie and Missy Gilbert were phased out because of the decision of the booking committee. They felt there were others that would be more marketable to push and didn't decide Gilbert should have a top spot. There were personality conflicts, somewhat because Gilbert's long term goal is to become head booker, but at the same time those in charge probably also felt they could justify it from a business standpoint"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2021 3:06:15 GMT -5
Dec 11, 89
"Multichannel News reported in the 11/13 issue when reporting on Halloween Havoc said that systems contacted reported buy rates generally between 1.5 and 2.0 percent for the show, which indicates the figure bandied about within NWA circles that the show did a 1.77 percent buy rate appears legitimate. Steve Chamberlain of Turner Home Entertainment publicly claimed a two percent buy rate which, if nothing else, appears to be the smallest exaggeration of the legitimate figures of any PPV event thus far for either group. Chamberlain, in the article, said that the increase in buy rate when compared with the previous NWA PPV events (ironically Chamberlain claimed a 2.1 for the Baltimore show, now claims a two percent as an increase and they were claiming a ridiculous 2.8 for the Flair-Steamboat Chicago show) was because they wrapped more entertainment around the actual wrestling itself and because of the promotional spots using Elvira"
"This is the last issue you'll be reading prior to Starrcade on 12/13. The major thing leading up to this will be if any indication will be given on television this coming weekend as to the status of Sid Vicious. As mentioned last week (My Note: Dec 4 issue is missing from the scans that are out there), Vicious collapsed on 11/18 at the St. Louis Airport when the broken rib he apparently suffered three days earlier in the Clash (nobody knows for sure when the injury occurred, speculation is it was when Scott Steiner gave him the blockbuster suplex) punctured his lung. The latest reports I've heard on Vicious is that he was still hospitalized by mid-week and it was doubtful he'd be able to return by the show, but it wasn't ruled out as impossible"
"The last word I'd also heard is that if Vicious isn't able to appear, that the Skyscrapers would be replaced in the "Iron Team" by the Samoan Swat Team. While this would make for better actual matches, that replacement wouldn't be well received by a lot of people purchasing the event. I don't expect any announcement to be made about Vicious' injury at any time, and instead they'll just have him continually no-show at all the house shows so these Warriors vs. Skyscrapers matches advertised never take place which must thrill the paying customers to no end"
"There is also still a lot of internal disagreement as to how both tournaments should end up and what should be done to get them to that point. If the Scrapers are out, one expects the tag division to wind up being either the Steiners or the Road Warriors. Since everyone has been told over and over again before-hand on television that Lex Luger is going to win the singles thing, I guess that makes him the favorite going in although other ideas have been bandied about"
"There was a lot of controversy within NWA circles about the New York Times article on the NWA which appeared in the Nov. 26 Business Section. The article, headlined by, "This isn't real," discussed the NWA's attempts to try and keep solid athletic wrestling while at the same time introduce gimmicks for kids. Within the context of the article it talked about how the NWA has banned blood (I don't know if the article specified they had only banned blood on PPV and television events because they regularly have juice at arena shows) and said that the blood was drawn when wrestlers use razor blades to cut open their opponent (which sounds even sicker than the real story)"
"Many in the NWA, including several key wrestlers were furious at this piece as a kayfabe violation. But I've got to disagree on this one. The journalism world is based on "herd journalism" (which has nothing to do with the exec VP of the NWA). The only reason the Titan admissions of wrestling as fake in the New Jersey hearings earlier this year got so much play nationally is because the New York Times printed the story on the front page. Once the editors of the Times decreed it was front page news, the rest of the country followed since the Times is a premier newspaper"
"Almost nobody believes wrestling is pure sport today, and if they do, they sure aren't reading the business section of the New York Times. I know that wrestlers are brainwashed from day one that the single biggest sin is to expose the business, but in recent years, the business has been exposed over and over, and the business exposed the most has been the WWF. Face it. You can't have it both ways. Wrestling can either stay in the closet and reach a hardcore following and not have enough mainstream exposure to do anything but small houses and small PPV's, or it can be an acceptable part of the entertainment industry as a pseudo-sport and get the coverage that its popularity warrants. But that coverage will always either be tongue-in-cheek and somewhat condescending to its audience or somewhat serious, in which case it will assume knowledge and write giving the impression that this is not pure sport we are talking about"
"The one disadvantage the NWA has when compared with the WWF of five years back is when the WWF made its move, every major media treated them like they were the only wrestling group around. At the time of the stories, in many markets, maybe even in more than half the country, the WWF was actually trailing the established promotions when it came to TV ratings and attendance, but those regional groups were never mentioned"
"If the NWA can manipulate the media into proclaiming them as a close second place (and if they use recent cable TV ratings, they can even claim right now in at least one factor they have a slight lead), which they aren't, and they are seen as a viable competitor, it is the one thing Vince McMahon has trying to avoid since this thing started. That he has competition. As mentioned here many times, the reality of who is doing what is not nearly as important as the Illusion that the groups create to outside sources and to the public. Lots of the WWF's early success was based on media manipulation and illusion, so even though the NWA's house shows are doing the worst in recent memory, that in no way precludes them from making important media breakthroughs"
"Back in 1984-85, when the WWF was getting its media blitz (again based on the herd journalism since the New York media had decreed their wrestling as a new fad well before there was any facts to back up that claim, and it was the media blitz as much as anything which created the fad) nearly every story also brought up the idea that wrestling was something less than on-the-level sport. But the publicity made the WWF something of an "in" thing and they've managed to ride the crest of that wave since. If anything, the biggest compliment one could say about the WWF is that they managed to use the "fad" press to build a base but never lost the base when the "fad" stories ended (largely as a result of their ability to garner such good ratings for the SNME's which kept them with network credibility)"
"Sakaguchi has been meeting with Baba more concerning the Tokyo Dome card in February. Even though Sakaguchi is either very close to, or already has inked a deal with Jack Petrik of TBS (Petrik is said to be going to Japan for the Tokyo Dome show), several of the NWA wrestlers had signed exclusive Japanese contracts to work for Baba and they are trying to work out a deal. Sakaguchi is particularly interested in Tom Zenk and Sting for the Tokyo Dome but no word if Baba will let them do the show. Right now the only NWA talent officially booked for the Tokyo Dome is Ric Flair and Muta"
"Kendall Windham returned as a heel, even lighter than before, and interfered in the Mike Rotunda vs. Tommy Rich match"
"All the interviews were taped backstage so no talk about Starrcade, which would be over, in front of the fans"
"TV ratings set another new high last week. World Championship Wrestling on 11/25 drew a 3.1 rating with Flair vs. Muta on top. That rating was the highest WCW has done going back well over one year. Even more impressive is the rating was achieved going head to head with the Miami-Notre Dame college football game which was the highest rated college game in two seasons. NWA Main Event (Luger vs. Pillman) also did a 3.1 while Power Hour with the Flair vs. Mike Rotunda replay on top did a 2.5. Over the past weekend the NWA cable shows outranked the WWF cable shows by a full three points"
"11/25 in Philadelphia drew 1,400"
"Talk of Dan Spivey & Nitron as Skyscrapers in Starrcade. Sid even more doubtful for the show than before"
"Cactus Jack Manson had a try-out on Tuesday night with the NWA"
Dec 18, 89
"I was disappointed in the NWA the way they've handled the Sid Vicious injury. They had several weeks to come up with some excuse, even if they didn't want to say Vicious was injured (one can argue legitimately that saying he's hurt would detract from his superhuman aura, and without that aura he's got absolutely nothing), or at least somehow announce the Samoans as being on the card. It's only truth in advertising. The way they handled it was a real Verne Gagne way to promote things. They knew full well when the television shows that aired this past weekend were taped that Vicious wouldn't be a part of the card, but continued to hype and advertise him anyway. Of course this is no different from what the WWF did at Survivor Series"
"The next NWA PPV event will be on Feb. 25 in Greensboro headlined by Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger. There has been some talk that this will also be a cage match but officially the card hasn't even been booked"
"Christmas week is going to be a big test for the NWA. With Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger as the headline match in all its major cities, which a year back could draw on a pretty consistent basis (right now, except for Atlanta, none of the cities draw) and what is traditionally one of the two best weeks of the year for the wrestling business, if these shows don't significantly pick up business then TBS had better get the message. The message is, at least until they've somehow changed the public perception of them as the feeder system to the WWF (or Triple-A wrestling), they can't make money promoting house shows"
"Arn Anderson's return finally aired on television this past Saturday. Some of the suspense about Ric Flair's mystery was removed when during promos for upcoming dates on the Power Hour and earlier in the show on WCW both Arn & Ole Anderson's names were announced for late December shows. Big pop for the return"
"Muta should be a face as he's ineffective as a heel. Sawyer is an effective heel but it's too early in his stint for him to be a headliner, if he should ever be one, while Dragon Master (Sakurada) just shouldn't be there at all"
"Samu is history, at least for now, so Fatu & Tama are billed as the Wild Samoans instead of the Samoan Swat Team. Officially they are saying Samu wanted to be taken off the road, but that sounds fishy"
"World Championship Wrestling on 12/2 (Midnight vs. Dudes) drew a 3.6 rating—highest of the year and 1.9 million homes which is the most homes ever to watch a regular WCW or GCW show. Main Event on 12/3 (Flair vs. Eaton) drew a strong 3.3, while Power Hour on 12/1 (Steiners vs. Doom) drew a 2.2. NWA Main rating was the third highest of the year behind Flair vs. Steamboat and Flair vs. Rotunda"
"Sid Vicious won't be back until mid-January at the earliest but still being billed everywhere"
"12/1 in Memphis drew 1,000"
"12/5 in Dayton for a TV taping drew 2,000. All three advertised main events (Steiners vs. Doom, Warriors vs. Scrapers and Pillman & Zenk vs. Freebirds) didn't take place"
"Rich & Gilbert beat Sawyer & Dragon Master via DQ and heels destroyed faces after until Ole & Arn made the save. I believe this was originally to be a single match with Sawyer vs. Gilbert but some backstage heat over the proposal that Sawyer destroy Gilbert and be left laying until getting saved"
"Cactus Jack Manson (who starts full-time in mid-January) teamed with a jobber against Rich & Ross and after losing, Manson beat up the jobber and gave him the elbow on the floor of the ice-covered hockey-rink floor"
"12/8 in Norfolk, VA saw more than a dozen no-shows because of weather conditions but fans were offered a choice of either refunds or free tickets to the next NWA show in Norfolk because of it. Results of a makeshift show saw Sullivan beat Brad Anderson, Samoans beat two local guys, Freebirds beat Gilbert & Rich, Sullivan won a Battle Royal to get a match with Sting (since Luger couldn't appear), Sting beat Sullivan and Flair beat Muta via DQ"
"In the TV match on Saturday between Rotunda and Rich, it was two unscheduled occurrences. First off, the Tommy Young ref bump was real (in fact, Tommy Young still hasn't returned to action after his neck was whiplashed and he still has numbness in his arm and isn't expected back for a while) and then the generator blew in the building (through no fault of the promotion but somehow these things always seem to happen to the NWA) so they had an unscheduled legitimate Lights Out match with Rotunda winning using the trunks"
"Kendall Windham looks tremendously improved upon his return. His work itself is great as are his mannerisms. The only thing holding him back is that he looks so skinny next to the monsters. In reality, Kendall looks normal, in fact, much larger than normal (he's 6-5 and probably 215ish) for a normal human being but the standards for size of a wrestler are so ridiculous because of chemical bloat that normal looks like a scarecrow inside a wrestling ring"
"The WWF originally wanted Brother Love's guest at Summer Slam to be Ric Flair, but Vince wouldn't give Flair a guaranteed contract and with the Turner purchase and the ouster of Dusty Rhodes as booker, Flair stuck with the NWA in 1989"
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