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I think we've gone over that several times in this thread, if folks care to go back and sift through it. Loss from the start wanted the speculation off of PWO: Everyone pretty much respected the heck out of that, and this thread avoiding being a cesspool like a lot of places on the net. But as far as what some of us thought when we initially heard: I'm a cynical person, and have read way too much true crime. Despite Helter Skelter being probably the first true crime book I read at probably the age of 14, you read enough (and follow the news enough), the reality of murder-suicide is one that you run into all the time and bizarre stuff like the Manson Family is flukey. In this case, it was just there. It's not a "look at me" type of thing when Bix or Dylan say it's what popped into their mind at the time. It really was just there.

By cold I mean that the big angle ran in January. The December match were rolled out "cold" before the angle, rather than the ones after the "hot" angle. Not that the match drew crap. John

The Sting matches in December, and prior to the TV angle, are a tough come for Sting: it's a match rolled out generally cold.

I barely remember the Flair-Hayes angle. Was there more than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90GiUssfOVY That's kind of standard stuff. It's not really memorable like Flair-Morton, or even the Flair-Ronnie out of the Date With Precious (i.e. "Can I watch?"). Or the Horsemen breaking Dusty's hand... and ankle earlier. Sting was in January, and was kind of memorable as the "Party Crasher" as a kid sticking his snotty nose into Horsemen Business. Hayes... felt more pedestrian. I'd actually looked forward to a Birds vs Horsemen feud, but they never did anything with it and by this point Hayes was just kind of sticking around.

My recollection is that the New Years cards where with massive discount tickets for kids... like in the range of $1. The gates for those weren't close to what that same number of fans would draw at a normal house. I don't think Hayes was a draw at all around the horn after Starcade 1987. If he was, they would have run longer with it and not gone to Sting. Granted... Dusty didn't have any love for Hayes. But business was shit, and if they suddenly had a magic face that was drawing 7500 - 12000 per show, they would have milked it because they were desperate for something... ANYTHING to draw. The other thing to keep in mind when looking at cards: The Bash Tour. There usually was a spike up in July for the Bash cards in each town as they ran loaded up cards. The Bash could drag on into August in some cities... I seem to recall we got ours in August in either 1987 or 1988. So a part of the July drawing power needs to be given to the Bash. John

How exactly was Flair popping up on Mid-Atlantic TV all the time in 1984 to say "hi" when he was touring around the country? He was a touring champ. His job was to promote his matches. It was a bitch of a schedule. John

Drawing was down as well. Overall, they did not draw as well in 1987 as the did in 1986. For the entire year, I'm pretty sure it was across the board. There may be exceptions such as Chicago, but I think in that specific case that they didn't work Chicago much in 1986 until the end of the year. Here's an example of a prime "expansion" city that JCP went into and did well: Philadelphia, PA - Convention Hall - February 5, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - Feburuary 28, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - March 26, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - April 30, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - June 12, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - July 20, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - August 23, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - September 7, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - October 5, 1985 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - November 23, 1985 (12,500; sell out) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - December 28, 1985 (10,000) I'm fuzzy on the history of JCP's "expansion" into Philly and Pitt in 1985. They went into it those cities well in advance of the rest of their expansion, some early cards tagged as JCP/AWA but looking extremely other than Slaughter and Backlund. In short order, they're pretty much JCP cards. They are doing very well by the end of the year. It probably would be useful for someone to sift through the WON's to see if Dave has more detail on what JCP drew in 1985... though he also may not have had it. 1985 was a bit of a year in flux for him in terms of coverage and writing. Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - January 18, 1986 (8,500) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - February 1, 1986 (6,500) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - March 22, 1986 (10,000+) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - April 18, 1986 (7,000) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - May 4, 1986 (5,000 - Kris) Philadelphia, PA - Veterans Stadium - July 1, 1986 (10,900) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - August 16, 1986 (7,000) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - September 6, 1986 (4,500) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - October 18, 1986 (7,000) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - November 1, 1986 Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - December 13, 1986 (10,000) The numbers are from Graham, with the exception of the one filled in with data Kris has in the Vince & Hogan vs The World. Some of the other numbers vary between what Graham and Kris has... not major with the exception of the Vet show. Anyway... they're doing "good" in Philly relative to a lot of expansion. I want to say the November show did okay as well. Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - January 10, 1987 (11,000; sell out) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - February 21, 1987 (7,216) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - March 28, 1987 (3,916) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - April 25, 1987 (2,500) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - May 30, 1987 (5,500) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - June 27, 1987 (5,500) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - July 25, 1987 (8,500 - Kris) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - August 22, 1987 (4,500) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - September 5, 1987 (3,200) - note these dates look odd in proxmimity Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - October 14 or 24, 1987 (2,500 - Kris) Philadelphia, PA - Civic Center - December 26, 1987 (6,000 - Kris) And there's the hammer. They did very well in the post-Starcade shows in 12/86 and 1/87, dropped down to about their "average" for the Flair-Barry in 2/87, then the bottom fell out for most of the rest of the year with the exception of the Bash show in 8/87. 1988 actually has some better numbers here and there, for example when Flair-Sting and Flair-Lex. But there also were some poor ones. 1987 just wasn't a great year. I went to shows here in LA at the time... and it as clear from the crowds that expansion wasn't going awesome across the country. No. Business wasn't strong as well as the other things being screwed up. They averaged 7640 in the 1986 in the 10 Philly shows I have attendance listed for. Kick out the 1/87 show (which was a reflection on 1986 success) and the 7/87 show (the loaded up Bash tour), and they averaged 4537 fans. That's a 3100 drop, 41%. If it's drawing, it pays for itself. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Drawing is a relative term. Business was down in 1987. Even Cornette talked about it in his book. Far from the worst. Try to recall the marking promotion of the Flair-Hayes feud at the end of 1987. And that one hardly is the worst. Try to recall the Flair-Armstrong marketing. Of course there were. They had better matches than the WWF. Other than that... there were mostly negatives.

Two things on this: #1 - totally agree The number of different places, even in the core, where they drew insanely bad, was pretty jaw dropping in the early 90s. It wasn't just 1993. They drew for shit in a lot of places in 1989-91 as well before Flair left and in 1991-92 before he came back. There were things that drew "well", but it usually was only relative to the total shit they typically were drawing. 5K vs 1K. Then on occasion something like Flair-Luger or Flair-Terry would draw, but it was nothing like 1986 or remotely close. Those charts that Dave would do that showed the monthly averages over the course of several years... they were bleak. #2 - Hogan didn't pop the house show business In major degree it was because he wasn't working that many house shows in 1994-95 for WCW. He was TV and PPV for the most part, with limited house shows. I think you and I, and others, have often pointed to the uptick in WCW house show business being Flair-Savage after Starcade 1995. Now I wouldn't want anyone to run with it too far because the "uptick" wasn't the same as what they would draw in their peak in the Monday Night Wars era, which is when the company was really drawing well. Simply that we can point to the house show business for WCW starting to improve with that feud. It's a bit like the WWF's house show business taking an uptick at that point after several years of general decline starting after Mania in 1992 when Hogan left. Shawn Fans liked to give Shawn credit for the uptick, but it actually started when the WWF rolled out the Bret-Taker-Diesel threeway feud on the house shows. It was the turning point in the house show business, though of course it would hit a much higher peak later in the decade with Austin & Co. John

Because he's stuck between The God Gotch and The God Lewis. Joe has long been thought of as an after through of those two. I think that's a bit of a mistake, but just the way things are. I'm pleased he got on the list at all, and #30 relative to where others got placed isn't too bad. Better than not being on the list. Danno drew a ton in a short period. I think one might reasonably argue him over Superstar in a similar concept: very short time, pretty significant impact which while perhaps not a massively positive one was a semi-logical one in the evolution of the business. Sonnenberg did business, and was national. Could see the argument. Bronko... one wishes his "peak" in pro wrestling was totally documented, and that we had good comparative data from there era as well (i.e. what he drew at his peak vs what others in the same cities drew in that period). John Why do the 1930's-1950's seem like they don't even exist when people make lists like this?

Forgot to mention in the last one. That change is rather obvious: http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/...atches1986.html

He was the NWA World Champ in an NWA Territory. Of course he was pimped on TV, when coming in. So were Parade of Champions in 1984 & 1985. He worked a good deal of JCP in 1983 when he dropped the belt. He also toured as Harley's opponent. Anyway, here's a partial list of NWA Title Matches for 1983-85: http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/...atches1983.html http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/...atches1984.html http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/...atches1985.html It's pretty much exactly what one would expect: The NWA Champion isn't a JCP Wrestler, or a wrestler for any one promotion. Even more so than the data reflects, since the "missing matches" are almost always in smaller territories where results haven't been as well documented/tracked as in the larger ones. John

Dear god...

Jose: ask Masanori Horie on Facebook. If you can't find him, look through my friends list... he's on there. I'm pretty sure I've seen Masa post a picture of Kawada at his restaurant. Masa also is a pretty good hook up if you want to know if there are any shows going on that might interest you. Still a big fan, and he's always been one of the nicest guys around.

A lot of stuff in the thread, hard to find a point to jump in, so... JCP went national largely in 1986. One will find some examples of them working "out of territory" before that, but 1986 is a safe one to point at. They made money in 1986. Business started having issues in 1987. Some areas did okay, many didn't. With good & bad happening in both the expanded areas and in the core. He took himself national. He also was sucking wind in 1987, to the point that Starcade 87 was the big bet... and it bombed. They were making good money at some point in 1985. I'm not sure it's really clear when the cash register clicked, but I don't think it was the entire year. 1986 was a strong year. They pretty much had Flair the whole year with few out-of-JCP trips. They had the RW the entire year. MX vs R'n'R was hot. Etc. Very good year. 1987... it's hard to know if the company ended the year with a net income. They were blowing money left and right, and taking out some big loans. Business was down in a lot of places. Not sure I'd say that was a positive. The rest of wrestling was largely dead at that point, other than promotions like Memphis, Portland and the AWA that were running on a bargain basement level. Being better than that base line doesn't matter. It's a bit like TNA doing better than anyone else. Meltzer actually spent a large chunk of 1987 talking about how rough things were getting for JCP. If we talk about "everything up to Turner in Nov 1988", then we're talking about a company that went out of business. Which is what happened to JCP: Crockett when broke. Ric's fault? Generally speaking, no. The business was run bad. But one has to be ginger about the "JCP Goes National" credit for Flair when the end result was a company that went broke with Ric Flair the anchor on top through 100% of that national expansion. Well, the problem with 1977-87 is that it includes a chunk of time where Ric wasn't in JCP (9/81 - some point in 1985) where he was running around being NWA Champ. His time in JCP in that stretch was limited, and his sustained impact on it was limited. So we can't give him a lot of "JCP Credit" for that stretch. We can give him World Champion Credit... but touring NWA World Champs all tend to get it. Credit to Ric in 1986, though hardly sole credit. 1987... that's a problem. WCW stopped being the House That Ric Built in 1994 when Hogan came in. Over time, it became the House The Eric Built. Not a lot of the foundation was built on Ric, or stuff that was built while Ric was around. I think your notion that Ric was a lynchpin for JCP for all that 77-87 run shows a lack of understanding of what the NWA Champ was all about. John

It's generally thought that WCW wasn't that far from having the plug pulled when they signed Hogan. They'd been losing money ever since Turner bought them, house show business sucked, they weren't strong TV at that time, and at a certain point suits stop wanting to blow money. The House That Flair Built died one time (JCP), was kept alive by a money mark (Ted) while losing millions of dollars a year, and didn't become profitable until Hogan & Eric made it so. Not really that analogous to Hogan and the WWF.

It's strange. I didn't care that much for the Raven character at the time, nor for his work. Thought he was overrated at the time, but then again... I didn't care for ECW in general at the time for reasons that are in one of the poster's signatures. But if you gave me the choice between watching Scotty talk about wrestling for 40 hours or watching 40 hours of Scotty wrestling & mic work & angles, I'd take the wrestling. Scotty talking about his own brilliance was annoying back in the 90s... I really don't want to see it now. John

Come on... overalls + t-shirt is the hillbilly equiv of jean shorts + t-shirt.

This thread was a lot of fun. Kriz busted his hump sifting through loads of results, and tossed in a lot of good analysis on when things shifted in each city/area.

Boy, you know it's true!

He took credit for it at least. The T-shirt wearing was to hide his flat chest. Yeah... Scotty, much like Heyman, takes credit for inventing everything. Haystacks Calhoun John

People loved this: So there's plenty of proof in the world of people loving all sorts of things that others find to be unloveworthy. John

I wouldn't say that Sid captures everything that I hate about pro wrestling. But he probably hits 90% of it. John

I think he was a big part of the 1993 tourney more than the 1994 one, just for the 11/30/93 being the turn around of what looked like a disappointing and doomed Tag League.

I linked to two of them. No one is saying Baba was GREAT~! or that he didn't have matches that were dogs. The Andre stuff sucked, but how much of that was the pairing? It came in 1990 & 1991 between his surprisingly fun pairing with Rusher in the 1989 Tag League on one side and on the other side his (i) surprisingly fun 1992 pairing with Kobashi in the Tag League and (ii) surprisingly fun pairing with Hansen in the 1993 Tag League, along with assorted other tags in the 1993-95 period. Was he in with a lot of great workers? Sure. Did Baba help contribute to those matches being good? Yeah. John

Since this is the first match of the reintroduced Champions Carnival to make the set, just wanted to point out how different tv coverage would be relative to the coming years. The number of Carny matches that made tv was low, with a surprising (looking back) number of non-Carny stuff making the air. 3/24/91 (taped 3/23/91) 1. Carnival: Hansen vs Dynamite Kid 2. Carnival: Kawada vs Kroffat 3. Jumbo & Taue & Fuchi vs. Misawa & Kobashi & Kikuchi 3/31/91 (taped 3/26/91) 1. Taue & Fuchi vs. Kawada & Kikuchi 2. Carnival: Jumbo vs. Cactus Jack 3. Hansen & Spivey vs. Misawa & Kobashi The first two tapings didn't have even one singles match between Jumbo, Hansen, Misawa, Kawada, Taue and Kobashi. Gordy & Williams didn't even work the tour. 4/7/91 (taped 3/29/91) 1. Kawada & Kikuchi vs. Dynamite Kid & Johnny Smith 2. Carnival: Misawa vs. Ace 3. Carnival: Jumbo vs. Taue A match between the upper card guys, with Jumbo against his partner. In turn, Misawa was still stuck with someone well below him. 4/14/91 (taped 4/6/91) 1. Carnival: Jumbo vs. Kawada 2. Carnival: Hansen vs. Misawa Finally on the last taping of the League part of the Carny, we get two matches between upper card guys. Four tapings, just three matches where the upper card guys squared off. 4/21/91 (taped 4/16/91) 1. Fuchi vs. Kikuchi 2. Misawa & Kawada vs. Taue & Ogawa 3. Carnival Final: Jumbo vs. Hansen Final night is just going to have one. Looking at how it changed in the following year: 3/22/92 (taped 03/20/92) 1. Carinval: Kawada vs. Kobashi 2. Jumbo & Ogawa vs. Misawa & Kikuchi Right off the bat an attractive match. 3/29/92 (taped 03/27/92) 1. Carinval: Taue vs. Spivey 2. Carinval: Hansen vs. Kobashi 3. Carinval: Jumbo vs. Gordy All three matches involve upper card guys. 4/5/92 (taped 03/31/92) 1. Carinval: Misawa vs. Kikuchi 2. Carinval: Kawada vs. Taue One upper card match, the other Misawa against his junior partner. 4/12/92 (taped 04/02/92) 1. Carinval: Hansen vs. Spivey 2. Carinval: Jumbo vs. Misawa Two for two, including the biggy. 4/19/92 (taped 04/04/92) 1. Carinval: Jumbo vs. Fuchi 2. Carinval: Hansen vs. Kawada The flip side of Misawa-Kikuchi, plus Hansen-Kawada. 4/26/92 (taped 04/14/92) 1. Carinval: Hansen vs. Williams 2. Carinval: Misawa vs. Gordy Two matches to determine who goes to the final. 5/3/92 (taped 04/17/92) 1. Kikuchi vs. Abby 2. Kawada/Kobashi vs. Jumbo/Ogawa 3. Carnival Final: Hansen vs. Misawa And the Final. Massive difference, quite loaded up. John