JerryvonKramer

I've just discovered another thing. Remember at the opening of Superstars, Vince and Jesse would be there in front of the crowd? Or on Challenge, Gorilla and Heenan would be there? Apparently all of that was green screen and shot in the studio with the arena just as the backdrop. This had never occured to me but of course it makes a lot of sense as the commentary was recorded in three-week batches at Studio 1. This makes Gorilla Monsoon's schedule look a little lighter. Assuming the commentary for the house shows was recorded there live (and since Dick Graham is on all the Philly shows, we have to assume that was the case), Monsoon would at most be working about 21 hours A MONTH. That's 3 hours for Challenge tapings, 8 hours for Prime Time studio bits and all four major House Shows when they were running them (MSG, Philly, Boston, MLG) plus a 3-hour PPV. Considering most people work a 40-hour week, this is not the heaviest load in the world in exchange for 1.5 x prelim workers pay from EVERY SHOW WWF ran. Granted, he'd have a bit of travel between the big Arenas, and when they were running LA that would presumably be a flight. But still, not bad at all.

In terms of emotion and character work, he comes into his own late on as “grumpy Jumbo” circa 89-92. I can see the argument that he’s a bit bland before that but the intensity of the work in the Choshu feud as well as the number of classics early when tagging with Baba (late 70s / early 80s) is a resume few others would ever achieve.

Tonight, I realised something that kinda blew my mind. I had assumed that Gene Okerlund, Sean Mooney and Lord Alfred Hayes took turns to do Event Center, but NO. It's almost always: WWF Update with Gene Okerlund Special Report with Lord Alfred Hayes Event Center with Sean Mooney This is the first time I've noticed this in 34+ years. Sometimes before a big PPV Okerlund would do "Report on Wrestlemania" or similar, but there is remarkable consistency to him doing Update, Hayes doing Special Report and Mooney doing Event Center at least from 1988 to 1993. WWF Update seems to have started as a segment in 1984 with Vince himself doing them, but pretty soon he was replaced by Lord Alfred Hayes doing it from a desk with a WWF mug next to him, but from 86 it seems like Gene takes over and it is a large part of the show once Superstars and Challenge start. Gene is sometimes at a desk in front of a green screen but most of the time he's standing with the monitors from the control room at an angle behind him, desk on a phone by his side, often you can see one or two staff members there. in 1987, Craig DeGeorge takes over with a blue backdrop which has the month prominently displayed and this lasts until about April 88 even though DeGeorge is still there. Update then moves back to the 86 Gene presenation. This seems pretty consistent until he leaves in 93. Update tends to be focused on one particular feud or angle, some key event happened at a house show, something like that. Update is often "brought to you from the pages of the WWF Magazine". After Gene left, Lord Al and Monsoon did most of them. Special Report, as far as I can see, is nearly identical to Update only it's Lord Al there and the desk has some merchandise on it. It's always focused on one particular feud or angle. I've found a couple of Special Reports from 87 where it's DeGeorge in place of Hayes, but it's mostly Hayes from 88 to whenever he leaves in the mid-90s. Special Report is often "brought to you" by the latest VHS release. I believe Event Center was introduced in 1987 as a brainchild of Bruce Pritchard to replace all of the localised market promos Gene Okerlund would have to do on the road. I have found a few odd ones with Billy Red Lyons and Raymond Rougeau from 1987 but it is almost exclusively the domain of Sean Mooney. These effectively replaced the promo interivews done by Okerlund, Resnick, DeGeorge and others in front of the big blue backdrop. Event Center is Mooney hyping an upcoming live card with insert promos from one of the matches. There would be 3 Event Centers per show hyping the same card. Usually a big house show such as MSG, Boston Garden etc, but these were localised -- so Mooney would do several versions to go out in different markets. This was recorded with Mooney at a desk in front of the same monitors used in Update and Special Report, it's just shot at a different angle.

I compiled this a few years back, of possible interest to current topic.

I'm still convinced that if you added up all the ticket sales nationwide that the aggregate revenue for pro wrestling in America was likely higher in 1978 than in 1988. Look at the crowds WWF or NWA were drawing in formerly solid towns and in many cases the gates are less than half what they were at peak. St. Louis is a banner case, but it's the rule rather than the exception. And by the end of the decade almost none of these places were being run every month either.

Come to really appreciate the Rogeaus on late 80s WWF house show cards, great character work and Jacques is a great smarmy heel. I think if I made a ballot today he’d probably make it in the 90-100 range.

Watching August 88 LA card and Ventura joins commentary in the middle of the card again! I think him and Graham just wanted an excuse to hang out in all honesty!

Just watching this LA card randomly and Gorilla is super critical on commentary during this match. I kinda dig the Gorilla-Graham announce duo though. This match was a bit weird and disjointed. Owen trying to make a name for himself but the pacing was all off for me, maybe Horowitz just couldn’t be carried to something decent but it was all a bit spotty. Can imagine it caused a buzz in 88.

Edit: Ventura’s gone by the next match which is Andre vs Duggan but then Duggan gives Graham the 2x4 to look after and Andre wants the timekeeper to have it and tells him to sit down and shut up. Graham has been super fun on this show. Wondering if he’s a bit underrated in this role.

Cheers mate, pronunciation never my strong point. I’ve thrown in a random House Show tonight. The July 88 LA Sports Arena show. And mid-way through Rockers vs Conquistadors, the second match, Ventura randomly comes out and sits in on commentary so you have an insane four-man booth of Monsoon, Ventura, Graham and Mooney. I believe this was Mooney’s second ever assignment. Before Ventura comes out he struggled to get a word in. Monsoon big timed him a number of times, every time he threw to Mooney he’d bring up his lack of experience and how he’s not knowledgeable about wrestling. “I’ve been around a lot longer than you” etc Several times he flat cuts off or no sells Mooney’s comments and throws to Superstar. Tough gig. Then after Ventura comes out Ventura and Graham drop all kayfabe and just talk about how they remember working out, they start up with gym talk. Graham puts over his calf work. Ventura claims Arnie was asking about Graham’s calves. Meanwhile poor rookie Mooney is trying to get over his scripted talking points about the Rockers and is just being no sold and talked over. Hilarious stuff really. This is all I do now watch random house shows or episodes of Challenge and stuff like that ha ha.

I put a lot of this into a documentary of sorts here. Good to see some old friends in comments.

I've built up a picture now of the broadcast team over the Golden Age. Strikes me that Vince aimed for a team of at least 9 on-screen personalities, 3 who could do play-by-play, 3 who could do colour, 3 who could do the Mean Gene role. The versatility of Lord Alfred Hayes seemed to cover a lot on what I've called "the C-team" since he could do the Event Centre updates and go on colour. He stays all the way until 1995 and is there much longer than you'd expect. There are also I think two distinct lines: 1. The Ken Resnick -> Craig DeGeorge -> Sean Mooney-> Todd Pettigall line 2. The Jack Reynolds ->Rodger Kent-> Rod Trongard-> Tony Schiavone-> Jim Ross line The Resnick line was clearly intended to be able to cover all the general duties of Gene Okerlund with any additional commentary a bonus. Recall Okerlund did commentary in 1984-7, but his chief duties were hosting All American, giving event centre updates and conducting interviews. In shoots both Resnick and DeGeorge have said they were brought in chiefly to lighten Okerlund's load. By 1986 he was presenting All American, Spotlight, TNT and doing all his usual stuff and was getting burnt out. The Reynolds like was clearly intended as a long-term Monsoon replacement, since I've heard that Monsoon ideally just wanted to present Prime Time with Heenan and would have happily dropped Challenge or his House Show stuff. Reynold, Kent and Trongard are all searches for that replacement but it's really when Tony comes in that you can see it as they stick Tony on Challenge and one suspects it was with a view to phase Monsoon out. However, that didn't happen because he left. The eventual replacement would end up being Jim Ross. By 1991, Mooney -- who stuck around much longer than Resnick or DeGeorge, had built enough enough experience to cover play-by-play and it seems Mooney and Hayes recorded voice overs for all the Prime Times from the debut of the new format starting February 18th 1991. You can see the January 91 Primetime shows still have different commentators. By this stage, they use a format where there's the odd match from MSG and Superstars plus Prime Time exclusive matches from TV tapings for Superstars and Challenge. It seems that by 1992, there was a Prime Time banner and someone who went live will have to explain how that worked since the exact same tapings later then have a Superstars set (with a screen). They must have taken those banners down live. The situation with different commentary teams on Prime Time -- if it was something that bothered Vince -- took at least six years to bother him. I have found one episode of Prime Time from May 11 1987 which has an absurd number of commentators (Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan, Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Bruno Sammartino, Dick Graham, Ken Resnick, Lord Alfred Hayes & Ron Bass). I watched through it and it actually helped to make you think there was tons of stuff going on from many different places, so I kinda liked it. The 91-2 Prime Times with Mooney and Hayes on commentary feel much smaller. Also watching back some of the 1990 Superstars aroud the time Piper comes in to replace Ventura and Vince is JUST INSANE on those shows. The whole product feels like it is on coke around that time!

I have now added Maple Leaf Garden broadcasts to the spreadsheet. Do any old Canadians (my old mate Kelly?) know who actually broadcast the MLG shows in Canada? Were they broadcast at all in US or were these shows exclusive to Canada? Gorilla seems to dominate the MLG broadcasts and notably much less varienty there, although it does seem like Sean Mooney was "trained up" there and Ventura to some extent in 1985. Regular broadcasts seem to get increasingly spotty from 1988 and in the final two years it is handed soley to the Mooney / Hayes "C-team" extraordinaire.

This seems to have emerged since I made this thread and is just awesome. One of the absolute best Dory singles matches after the 70s. Loved it. Real intensity.