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And it also was A Show, as opposed to 6 months of doing strong Omni business. JCP did a strong show in Los Angeles. They had issues sustaining it. Which is a contrast to their business in Philly and Baltimore, where they had good attendance for a long period, even if it was a bit up and down at times.

No, I write as someone who lived through that promotion going in the shitter, then two decades ago read all the WONs from the time period covering the promotion going in the shitter. I can't help it that you're wrong. People are trying to point it out, not just me... but you keep up with it. Terry's wrong. Why do people lie? Who know. We just passed the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, and there was a full court press of people still defending that fucking catastrophic disaster. Why? It's part of their legacy. They've been telling the lies so long they believe them. They can't admit they're wrong. They bought the bullshit. They're fucking stupid. Who knows... pick one of them, because they're wrong. Goddamn... you're citing multiple shoots of pro wrestler who lie and misremember things. Seriously, I can't wait for you to get your hands on Larry Z's and drag it over here with some of your "Why would Larry lie about this?" nonsense. KHawk and my heads are going to fucking explode. Jerry: I've had wrestlers try to lie right in my face as I've stood next to Meltzer and Keller, a couple of guys that you'd think they'd try not to lie to because they were tacitly friendly with them. Some of them were just stupid, silly things that you just shook your head over why they were bothering. Some were over hyping shit. I don't really take accounts of wrestlers into much broader considerations. History degree. I'll happily draw my own historical conclusions, Jerry. Actually, with both Mid South and Texas, I and other people rolled out a number of factors that impacted those companies going to shit. We've indicated that the economy had a small impact. You are buying Watts' bullshit, which he's been rolling out for 20+ years to absolve himself of blame, that the Oil Glut was fully responsible for killing his great business. You happen to be wrong on that, as is Bill. If you want to believe the wrestlers on that, by all means go for it. We can not stop you from believing what you want to. We can only try to correct the record so that other people stopping by a thread like this don't get the wrong idea of history and believe the nonsense you're rolling out. John

I'll be contrary and say that modern wrestling with 4-5 hours of prime time TV a week, every week, where it's such a massive part of the revenue stream of the WWE needs Writers. We can semantically call them "bookers", but it's really now well past what bookers once did. Look at Cornette's MX book where he includes examples of his blocking out TV time. Those were still in the tail end of the Squash Match Era, but the Booking Committee was already starting to block out television like it was, you know... Television. We can talk all we want about the good old days where wrestler came up with their own shit... but we're actually full of shit on that. Hogan and Orndorff didn't come up with their turn, and how to do it. Someone in the back did. They came up with Paul turning. They came up with the whole Paul thinking Hulk isn't showing him enough respect, the phone call thing, the Moondogs match, Heenan's involvement, the Studd-Bundy match... the whole fucking thing. The is the equiv of "writing". It's far more than simply booking Valentine to come in to face Backlund, having a few squashes and being the next challenger. Hogan-Orndorff was an actual storyline. It's not just major things. Think back about the MX vs Dudes storyline. In a sense, Cornette was "writing" that whole thing. It's not like absent Corney and subbing in someone else that say the Dudes and the SST could have come up with something like that: they weren't very smart folks at the time. With the importance of TV to revenue now, and literally having to sell Weekly TV even more than 1 house show in MSG a Month, you need to "write" out what people are doing. * * * * * What wrestling doesn't need is shitty writers / bookers / creative people like Russo. John

PS: On World Class... It went to shit because: * Von Erichs kept dropping dead and/or getting maimed while new Von Erichs sucked * they were unable and unwilling to get over strongly non-Von Erich faces * they weren't able to get another batch of heels over as strongly as the Freebirds * Gino & Adams weren't a bad next batch of heels, even if they weren't quite as hot as the Birds... * hey look... Gino cokes himself to death * split from NWA took away being able to bring in Flair to draw * lots and lots and lots of drugs In the end, it was the product.

I'm starting to understand where Jerry gets most of his theories that don't match reality and make him ponder Important Questions: He watches way too many Wrestling Shoot Interviews. I said this in an earlier thread: They're wrestlers, they lie and distort and misremember and put themselves over. They also tend to be more than a bit ignorant as well when it comes to the world outside their own small circle of knowledge (pro wrestling), and live in that bubble. I don't want to say they're useless... but they're generally wastes of time to use for Historical Information. I mean... I fully expect you to be dragging over Larry Z's history of the WWF and AWA at some point, and us having to bang our heads against the wall trying to correct your latest theories. John

Because a rich person offered him a ton of money to run his own promotion. That turned out to be SWS. Tenryu got a bunch of people to jump from AJPW and NJPW. The promotion bombed, then split into WAR and some other promotion whose name I can't remember. WAR bombed as well as a stand alone promotion.

Watts thinks it was strong product. That doesn't mean it was strong product to the ticket buying fans. WWF @ St. Louis, MO - Kiel Auditorium - August 10, 1984 Television taping - featured Vince McMahon on commentary: Georgia Championship Wrestling - 8/18/84: The Junkyard Dog pinned Max Blue at 4:17 with the powerslam (JYD's debut) The Midnights also left for Texas at the end of 1984. What I'm trying to say, is that you could put on the best "product" out there to one type of fan's viewpoint (say 1989 Flair-Steamboat), but it might not be the "product" that certain other fans like (say 1989 Hogan-Savage which kicked the living fuck out of Flair-Steamboat at the box office). So Watts thinking he put out great product in 1985 and 1986, and a bunch of us sitting around in a circle getting all worked up about the Mid South / UWF tv of those years, doesn't mean jack shit if it really wasn't working up the fans to go out and buy tickets like they did for JYD and those two major 1984 MX feuds. Read the Cornette MX scrapbook. He's already pointing out Super Dome business being down after JYD left, even with "loaded up" cards. Yeah, Watts is compelling. So is Russo in his shoots to Russo Fans who either don't know any better or think VinnyRu's shit don't stink.

He fucking sucked. 100% lock to get me to reach for the: John

Crude prices are vastly higher now than they were in the mid-80s. On the other hand, fracking and the natural gas boom (i.e. cheap natural gas costs) have massively impacted coal production and one would suspect oil, though I follow oil production far less than years ago.

As far as it's impact on wrestling and entertainment... hard to say. Take the movie business in the Great Recession. It didn't completely go in the tank: 2005 - $8.8B 2006 - $9.2B 2007 - $9.7B 2008 - $9.6B 2009 - $10.6B 2010 - $10.6B 2011 - $10.2B 2012 - $10.8B Growth stopped in 2008, but bounced back in 2009. Its been flat since then, but it was flat in 2003-06. Entertainment money often continues to be spent in tough economic times. Watts was also hurt by JYD leaving, and the MX vs Watts and MX vs R'n'R running their course by the end of 1984. Economics were a part of it, but an overblown one by Watts and Ross. Promoters and people in the business always want to blame something other than the product. Often it's the product. Note: I wouldn't blame Watts as much on the "product" as say Russo and Heyman and Steph-Trip. Watts was more in the "shit happens" zone, as JYD probably wouldn't have left Mid South for years if Vince didn't go national. The promotion would have had ups and downs, but they also would have had programs with JYD that caught fire. Some bad luck there, but Vince made bad luck for a lot of people. John

It wasn't an "oil crisis", which is when prices shoot upward. It was an "oil glut", which causes prices to drop. Much of US production was expensive to produce relative to OPEC crude. It was worthwhile to extract when crude prices where high (i.e. allowing extraction and production to be profitable), and it wasn't worthwhile to extract when crude prices dropped too low (i.e. made it unprofitable). The known cheap & easy crude in most of the US had be extracted by that point, with the exception of places like Alaska. Production in Texas and Louisiana went to shit: it just wasn't profitable to chase it, as did exploration. In turn, places that had a boom because of the oil crisis of the 70s (OPEC sending the price of crude through the roof), had massive economic busts. TX, LA... etc. Probably can google something on it. It was in the news at the time, but it also sticks in my mind because my father worked for Texaco so I got years of oil business stuff being talked about by him. John

The whole card should be in circulation. Did anyone check these out for the WWF 80s redux set?

This actually looks really damn cool.

I bought him a copy. He was uncomfortable with his name popping up so much that I don't know if he finished it. I've kept pushing, and indicated your usage of his quote was really well done. :/

Yeah, Greg going off about the AWA Title being the Gagne Title and it's his birth right to have it would be pretty funny. John

Rockers vs the MX would have been interesting, in JCP/WCW. In the WWF... I'd be pissed off with the Heel In Peril crap. Misawa & Kobashi vs Mutoh & Hase and Kawada & Taue vs Mutoh & Hase circa 1995 would have been interesting, though the window doesn't line up well with (i) Taue stepping it up, (ii) Mutoh growing as IWGP Champ, and (iii) Hase retiring. Hash & Hirata vs Kawada & Taue is a more modest one, but you could see it as a war.

Everyone would turn on Zenk. Then Tom would need to find some useless pretty boys to team up with because this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part... "We're just the guys to do it."

http://www.midatlanticgateway.com/resource...s_steamboat.htm 1982 All Japan Pro Wrestling: 05/14 Tokyo, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater beat Mighty Inoue & Ashura Hara 05/15 Tokyo, Japan Ricky Steamboat beat Takashi Ishikawa 05/16 Komae, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater beat Great Kojika & Motoshi Okuma 05/17 Kawasaki, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater beat Ashura Hara & Rocky Hata 05/19 Matsudo, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater beat Mighty Inoue & Prince Tonga 05/20 Fuji, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood beat Akio Sato & Takashi Ishikawa 05/21 Asagiri, Japan Ricky Steamboat beat Takashi Ishikawa 05/22 Soma, Japan Ricky Steamboat beat Mighty Inoue 05/23 Sagae, Japan Ricky Steamboat beat Prince Tonga 05/25 Mori, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater beat Rocky Hata & Prince Tonga 05/26 Muroran, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood beat Mighty Inoue & Takashi Ishikawa 05/28 Asahikawa, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood beat Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa 05/29 Iwamizawa, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood draw Akio Sato & Atsushi Onita 05/30 Wakkanai, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood beat Great Kojika & Motoshi Okuma 05/31 Kitami, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood beat Atsushi Onita & Takashi Ishikawa by CO 06/01 Sapporo, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater beat Mighty Inoue & Ashura Hara 06/02 Akita, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood double countout with Akio Sato & Atsushi Onita 06/03 Sanjo, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Akio Sato, Atsushi Onita beat Greg Gagne, Jim Brunzell, & Ron Miller 06/04 Niigata, Japan Ric Flair beat Ricky Steamboat(16:21) 06/05 Numazu, Japan Ricky Steamboat, Atsushi Onita & Takashi Ishikawa beat Greg Gagne, Jim Brunzell & Ron Miller 06/06 Omiya, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood draw Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell 06/07 Fukushima, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Shiro Koshinaka 06/08 Tokyo, Japan Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell beat Ricky Steamboat & Atsushi Onita 06/09 Otsu, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater beat Akio Sato & Atsushi Onita 06/10 Sakai, Japan Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood beat Mitsuharu Misawa & Shiro Koshinaka Hisa hit it over here as well: http://sportsandwrestling.mywowbb.com/forum2/15384-3.html Of course it doesn't exist on tape. Doubt it was a taping, either. 6/1, 6/4 and 6/8 were tapings where matches exist on tape. Classics didn't cover anything earlier in the series. Just not likely that 6/6 would be a taping in the middle of those other three. But it did happen.

How can Hogan defend the championship with a broken leg? If it happened on the night Hogan was suppose to win the title, they wait until Hogan gets healthy and have him win the title at that point. It's easy enough to get the belt off Sheik to someone else in a fictional title change. If it happened after Hogan won the title, they simply would have had Hogan wait to defend the title until he was ready to come back. Not hard to do. He wouldn't have. How exactly would WWF fans in 1984 have learned about it? In turn, there would be no footage for Verne to play on AWA TV. It's Verne's word, Sheik talking shit, and all that jazz. It's not like Sheik was a major star when he won the WWF Title. What made him a star was: * losing to Hogan * going around the horn with Hogan * Slaughter-Sheik * the WWF going national None of which happen if Sheik runs off to the AWA claiming to be the WWF Champ. Go in the other direction. What would Verne do with Sheik? Job his title claim to the AWA Champ at the first chance. What was Verne up to with the AWA Champ in mid/late Jan 1984? Verne knew by that point that Bock was going to drop the title to Jumbo. I don't know if we've ever gotten the truth, or ever will, if Verne knew in January 1984 that it was going Nick --> Jumbo --> Martel rather than simply back to Nick. Martel winning the title always felt like a reaction to Hogan winning the title, as opposed to Heel Nick holding the belt almost entirely from from 11/75 - 2/84 other than the Verne Final Dance and the Wanz turn around. But maybe that was the plan even in January 1984. If it was, when does Sheik drop his claim to the AWA Champ? To Bock before Bock goes to Japan? To Jumbo? Wait until May (actually June) to drop it to Martel? That's a hell of a long time to wait, especially with a wrestler who has already proven himself untrustworthy given breaking Hogan's leg. Doesn't quiet add up where the AWA benefits from this. All they do is piss Hogan and Vince off. My guess is that Vince and Hogan would be even more focused on killing off the AWA, and other than open areas like California and running in their own existing territory, they much just focus all their efforts to kill the AWA quickly. You also have to wonder how loyal some of the folks in the AWA will stay when they find out that Verne paid Sheik to break another wrestlers leg. Even if it's Hogan and Vince, there is a code of respect/honor in the business... it's very much a business where in the ring you don't break a guys leg, especially when you've agreed to go in and drop a title to them. I mean... you think Martel wants to work for that guy? Or if Vince offers him $250K in cash to show up at the next WWF taping with the AWA title, that Rick might not think it's better to head to the WWF than stick around an asshole promoter who thinks it's cool to break worker's legs? Not sure how any of this plays out well for Verne. For Vince and Hogan, they would just wait to heal up and kill the AWA. John

No. They would have ignored that it happened, and still pushed Hogan as Champ. John

Great callback on one of the first bizarre true crime stories I ever read about. Is McDonald still in jail? Has prevailing opinion ever swayed one way or another regarding his guilt or innocence? Don't mean to go OT, just got curious upon reading that name again. McDonald is still in jail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._MacDonald He's still an appeals machine. He's 70 later this year. With some luck he'll drop dead soon. John

Fuck... killing Daniel to protect him from a "life of shame" isn't pride. It was delusional batshit crazy. It's not thinking in terms of pride.

I'm with KHawk. It was the WWF starting in 1984 under Vince that largely was in a bubble, pretending that: * nothing outside the WWF happened * only what was currently in the WWF happened (i.e. when you left, your history did) * today is the only day These weren't 100% locked in... but it was pretty much a 100% mentality and philosophy. The rest of the wrestling world had a history. Granted... wrestling never has dealt with history well because people weren't writing it down in record books, and others were twisting it around. So history was a fuzzy thing, but it was out there. Over time, you sort of got WCW under after the buyout doing the same thing. When people came in from the WWF in 1989-94 they really didn't talk about what they did in the WWF. I don't recall them talking about Ric winning the WWF Title twice "up there"... though maybe I'm forgetting it. I don't recall them talking about Arn winning the WWF Tag Title... or Valentine being a former IC and WWF Tag champ. They might have on some buried weekend or syndication broadcast, but it wasn't a strongly pushed thing like Ron Simmons playing at FSU being tossed out All The Fucking Time. One got the sense that WCW didn't want to look "lesser" by pushing guys who'd been something in the WWF a while back but weren't much when they left. That perhaps changed a bit under Eric, more so in the Monday Night Wars where Eric was able to steal WWF guys who weren't washed up. John

What I don't see is why Dave bought Mick's bullshit, given Dave's own review of the match.

If he copped a plea, he wouldn't have gotten death. That's the typical buyout in the deal: save us the time and cost of a trial and all the appeals, and we won't push for death. Setting aside the fact that Chris killing himself sooner or later was the only realistic outcome given *Chris*, it never would have gone to trial unless Chris pulled some Jeffrey MacDonald bullshit story out of his ass. If he even remotely went down the path of forcing a trial, he was staring death in the face because of the murder of Daniel. If it was only Nancy, he could try to roll the dice on a conviction on lower charge than what the DA might be tossing at him. But Daniel... that's just not one that he could have rolled the dice on given the evidence. No matter how far gone Chris would have been at the time, it's a lock that his attorney would have gotten that across to him. John