jdw

I really don't see why not. People do PhDs in much more fripperous things than pro wrestling. There's a huge amount of archival material there, there is original and even "pioneering" work to be done, it's part of American heritage, all the sorts of things funding bodies like. To be honest, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already. I could see some more adventerous drama or performing arts departments taking it on. Or a cultural studies department. Stranger things have happened. Phd applications won't be on when Flair became a national star. They'll be on why fans give a shit about a fake sport where two guys are rolling around on the mat in speedos. Wrestling history, especially in the 50s / 60s / 70s, isn't worth the effort of Phd work. But... have at it. John

For fucks sake... this "national star" nonsense is like someone who can't stop looking at Nicole Kidman's tits long enough to figure out that she can act. Ric Flair worked places other than JCP before becoming World Champ. Flair became a national star "soley" through becoming World Champ. By that I mean, A MAJOR FUCKING NATIONAL STAR rather than a guy who got a short push in St Louis and work a tour or two of Japan and worked the undercard of MSG a time or two. Ric wasn't a truly massive major national star until be got the belt. Pretty much anyone who knows anything about pro wrestling history knows that Valentine and Wahoo who major stars before they even came to JCP. Probably Bockwinkel in the AWA. He wasn't a massive star prior to getting there and having the Tag Title run before the World Title run. He would have been a "star" in Los Angeles in the same way Bruno was a "star": a guy that people read about in wrestling mags. Neither worked in LA much as all, they wouldn't have been on TV much at all, they just were guys who fans sorta-kinda knew were the other World Champs as opposed to the World Champ who came into their territory. Andre wasn't a national star because of the WWWF, but because he worked everywhere. Dusty worked a lot of places as well. So "outside of the WWWF" is kind of moot, unless someone was following the mags covering every big MSG feud. But if they were doing that, they were reading about other major stars as well. Bruno and Bock and Verne were known because they were World Champs... and Verne was known nationally before he was AWA Champ. Gene & Lars worked more widely. Ole & Gene focused more on JCP and GCW, but I'd hesitate to say it's the only place they worked in the 70s. I think you're leaping around. By winning the NWA Title. In what sense? The promotion did business under them. Lots of wrestlers give Wahoo credit for having an impact on the promotion and their careers, such as Flair. In turn, Flair praises the shit out of Valentine. As far as in the eyes of fans? People in Portland generally didn't give a shit whether JCP... or Los Angeles... or San Fan... or Texas is doing business. They cared about wrestling in Portland for the most part, because that's all they saw. In turn, the promoter in Portland didn't care a ton about what was going on in JCP or LA or San Fran: he had his own promotion to run. John

Eh gads... We actually don't know a great deal about that relative to the 50s and 60s and 70s because pro wrestling history isn't well documented. So this isn't "known". After the plane crash, Ric *eventually* became the top star. Ric really wasn't a "national star" before becoming the world champ. He worked elsewhere in limited ways. He certainly wasn't a national star like Andre was. He wasn't a bigger national star in 1978 than Superstar Graham was. He wasn't as big of a national star in 1978 as Dusty was. As far as previous stars of JCP, Johnny Valentine was a bigger national star than Flair was at any point prior to Flair winning the World Title. *That* is what truly made Flair a major, massive national star. Wahoo also was a bigger national star in say 1975 than Flair was prior to winning the World Title. I don't think they're related at all, so it's not worth tying into Flair. I think Dylan covered it well: That Det, San Fran and LA died (which frankly didn't happen until the earlies 80s for good) didn't have anything to do with JCP getting hot, or really relate to each other. Territories tended to be cyclical. Los Angeles when through various periods of being hot in the 30s, 40, 50s, 60s, and 70s... and also down times in all of them. This wasn't simply a "promotion" going up and down: older promotions / promoters crapped out and were replaced by new ones. San Fran was the same, and Det cycled through promoters if one goes all the way back to the 30s and on through the 70s. We don't have a really full picture of JCP from the 50s on through 1985 when they started expanding. So what we "know" about JCP is very limited. Wrestling history isn't worth even joking about Phd applications. That's coming from someone who likes wrestling history far more than the average fan. Don't even know what you're asking here. On territories? Very little. On wrestlers? Lots of wrestlers bounced around territories rather than staying in one place, and hence over time you could say they worked "nationally". Crockett drove nothing pre-84. He ran his own territory, one that was bound by other territories. He wasn't aggressive. There were two types of "expansion" efforts prior to the WWF's major expansion: * moving into "open" or "dead" territories For example, California was essentially dead / open by 1983 as both the Los Angeles and NoCal office shut down. So you had the WWF and the AWA move in to run shows in California. The GA office also moved into Ohio at a certain point because it was generally open. I'm sure others can point to various other regions that were like this. * moving into other people's territories The AWA tried to promote in Los Angeles in the late 60s with some loaded up cards. The LA office kicked their ass, and Verne left with his tail between his legs. Honestly don't know why he did it because it wasn't at a point when the LA office was bombing. I think he may have tried the same thing in San Fran opposite of Shire at some point and got his ass kicked as well. That type of thing (and existing outside office trying to steal a territory) was kind of rare. There were successful attempts, which was largely a new promoter starting up a new promotion in a territory that was dying / in bad shape. I don't think the old San Fran office was completely dead when Shire came in... he just killed it off. I think the same thing was the case when what became the WWA in Los Angeles came in - it wasn't as if there was no wrestling in Los Angeles, but the old office was way down and long suffering. The new office did business with Carpentier and then Blassie, and that was all she wrote. This was a bit more common, and there are plenty of examples people can point to where a territory effectively was taken over rather than "expanded into". Mid-Atlantic had nothing to do with expansion, other than to respond to it a year after Vince went national. Who knows and who gives a shit. Don't apply modern pro wrestling TV to old territory TV. The point was simply to get people out to the house shows. If the house show business was successful, TV was a part of it... but hardly an exclusive part of it. Good talent, good storylines (not in a TV sense), good booking (again not in a TV sense) all played a role. The Mid Atlantic region. JCP wouldn't give a shit about being on in Los Angeles in the 70s: those folks weren't going to come out to see the house shows. Moot. Moot. Not really. No one asks them because they're pointless. Ric was a big star in Mid-Atlantic before becoming NWA Champ. There were lots of guys who were big stars in their territories in 1976-81. Bob Backlund, for example. Nick Bockwinkel, for example. Antonio Inoki, for example. Ric was a big star in JCP. JCP did good business, and Ric was a key part of that. Studies? Who are these people writing "studies"? Really? People have written about Crockett moving up into the top group of promoters of the NWA as Sam's power base slowly faded. He became president for the first time in 1980. What more do you need to know: he was respected by his piers. He didn't exactly "gain control" of the world title as much as the rest of the NWA died around him, and it happened to be his wrestler (Flair) who was the world champion. If there had been a number of small piss ant territories left in 1986 that were clamoring for 80% of the dates of the NWA Champ, it's likely that Crockett and Dusty would have handed over the title and called Ric the World Champ of something else so that they could have nearly all of his dates. By 1986, there wasn't a viable alternative NWA World Champ... and with offices dying, closing down... it really was moot. Texas going its own way was pretty much the final nail in any alternative to the rest of the NWA just letting Crockett being the "NWA" and accept whatever table scraps they could get. By the end of 1986, there was even less left. The quote from Dave in 1989 is largely useless: it was at a time when Dave wasn't writing much on history, and really wasn't well tapped into asking about it. John

It depends on how you define "Flair's time". Do you mean when he simply showed up in JCP, or when he became one of the handful of top stars there? Flair's real push to the top was in 1976 with his feud with Wahoo over the Mid-Atlantic Title and his pairing with Greg Valentine to win the World Tag Titles at the end of the year. He actually won the MA title late in 1975, but quickly went out of action after the plan crash, so it's probably better to say the really big push was 1976. The other reason to say that is because Johnny Valentine was clearly the top heel in JCP until the plane crash. Johnny dominated the Mid-Atlantic title all through 1974 and into mid-1975, really only dropping it to Wahoo because he was going to win the new (and more important) US Title a couple of days later. He was launching into what looked like another stretch of dominating a title when the plane crash happened. So to me, "before Flair's time" is before he got to the very top of JCP. The top guys just prior to that were Johnny Valentine (lead singles heel), Wahoo (lead face) and the Andersons (lead heel team). The Andersons dominated the MA Tag Title in 1973, then the newly formed World Tag Titles in 1975 through October 1977. Even Ric & Greg's first title right was a short 4 month break before Ole & Gene took them back. As far as being national stars, Johnny and Wahoo clearly were. Johnny probably worked as a top heel in most of the major territories of the country at one point or another. We could safely call him one of the top heels in the country from the late 50s through the mid-70s. He seems to have settled down to a good run in the Mid-Atlantic, and it didn't look like the end was in sight when the plane crash happened. Seemed like the office liked him, and it seems like JCP was doing good business with him. Wahoo also had worked as a top star in a lot of places. The Andersons also worked on top in Georgia and other territories. They weren't close to the national stars that Johnny and Wahoo were, so you probably aren't going to see them pop up in as many territories. But they did get around.

The problem is that Graham's info for Expansion Era tv tapings doesn't always list the Dark Matches "last" or even in the order they took place in the card. The first Hogan-Flair was a dark match at a TV taping: He essentially lists the Wrestling Challenge "shows" in order last, by what appeared on them in the order they appeared. That doesn't mean the matches were taped in that order: stuff was spliced together. In turn, he lists the non-Wrestling Challenge stuff at the top, so of which was for Primetime, some for CHV, and in the case of Hogan-Flair, essentially a dry run of the match before it started around the horn. Does a TV taping like that have a true Main Event? Hard to say. I went to a pair of TV tapings, one in Long Beach (old school syndication) and another in San Bernadino (Raw in the days after they moves out of the Manhattan Center and into arenas). I don't recall any "main event" being pimped in tv promos leading up to either. I could be wrong... but just don't recall. But in the first, there was a Bret Hart vs Bam Bam Bigelow title dark match, while the second had a Shawn Michaels vs Jerry Lawler which was the day after Shawn won the title... but it also aired on Raw. The Bret-Bigelow match 100% didn't take place where Graham has it listed, but again... it's tough to document the order of matches on a taping, and it also doesn't lend itself well to what Graham is trying to do with tapings (he actually presents the info in the most useful fashion). There probably were some tapings where a clear "main event" was pimped in local promos leading up to the event. Also, on some level, if the World Title / World Champion worked in a non-squash, that probably was the main event. But it's really tough to figure out in the old form of tapings. John

Plays to a pair of wrestling fan insecurities: * the fact that they're fans of two guys in speedos rolling around on a mat * that smart people thought wrestling was fake and stupid There's a long history of gay / feminine heels. There also was a long history of smart / snob heels looking down their noses at fans. Add them together, presto. John

Also get a sense that they had a nice little base for a territory: 953,520 Louisville 938,777 Memphis 850,505 Nashville That's not really epic in the sense of what Pre-Expansion WWWF/WWF had, or Pre-Expansion Mid-Atlantic. But Memphis, Lousiville and Nashville were decent sized. John

I think in one of our discussions on Expansion or other things that I probably rolled it out. Anyway, this is April 1980, which is slightly more than the number above for 1980: 18,905,705 NY 11,497,548 LA 8,114,844 Chicago 5,790,555 DC/Baltimore/NVA 5,649,031 Philly 5,367,900 SF/Oak/San Jose 5,293,161 Detroit 5,121,673 Boston 3,118,480 Houston 3,046,136 Dallas / Fort Worth 2,938,277 Cleveland 2,643,766 Miami / Ft Laud 2,571,223 Pitt 2,414,061 St Lou 2,408,749 Seattle 2,233,229 Atlanta 2,198,190 Minny/St Paul 1,861,846 SD 1,741,899 Denver 1,726,430 Cincy 1,613,600 Tampa / St Pete 1,600,093 PHX 1,583,518 Portland 1,570,152 Milw 1,449,380 KC 1,305,911 Indy 1,304,212 New Orleans 1,242,826 Buffalo 1,214,291 Columbus 1,200,998 Norfolk / VA Beach / Newport News 1,099,814 Sacramento 1,088,881 San Antonio 1,080,710 Hartford 1,076,557 Providence 1,030,630 Rochester 971,447 Charlotte 953,520 Louisville 950,763 Greensboro / Winston-Salem 942,083 Dayton 938,777 Memphis 910,222 Salt Lake City 860,969 OKC 850,505 Nashville 840,824 Grand Rapids 824,729 Albany 815,333 Birmingham 804,774 Orlando 762,565 Honolulu 761,311 Richmond 744,428 Greenville / Spartanburg / Anderson 722,865 Syracuse 722,252 Jacksonville 664,788 Raleigh / Durham / Chapel Hill 659,387 Scranton / Wilkes-Barre 657,173 Tulsa 644,922 Youngstown 616,864 Toldeo 605,419 Omaha 585,051 Austin 577,737 Fresno 576,758 West Palm Beach / Boca Raton 569,777 Springfield, MA 556,242 Harrisburg 551,052 Allentown 546,488 Knoxville 531,443 Tuscon 528,000 Las Vegas My guess is when we look at the Metros/Cities in that way, Memphis fits in at about the right spot. The ones smaller than it... they're pretty much ones that you'd think were smaller. There might be some above Memphis that was slightly surprising, like Rochester or Columbus... but it's not like I thought there was a massive difference in them anyway. Memphis and Nashville grew at a quicker pace in the 80s than Louisville, so they would both jump it in the 1990 Census.

Memphis Metro: 1970: 834,103 1980: 913,472 1990: 981,747 Memphis City: 1970: 623,988 1980: 646,174 1990: 610,337 The Saturday show didn't draw millions of viewers in Memphis. It also didn't draw 60% of the total population. It's simply alleged to have draw 60% of the folks watching TV at the time. Saturday morning isn't Prime Time in terms of people watching TV. 60% is an impressive number, but it shouldn't be overblown into folks thinking that 300K people were turning in to watch it. There weren't. John

The work-in-progress stuff perfectly explains it to me, as does Dave just running off half cocked on it... because that is very Dave. As I said earlier: "Chris is a smart guy. He wouldn't have done that." John

If Punk-Rock did business, it might not be a bad idea for them to go to the well again. Who knows when Rock's next match will be after Mania, or how many there will be. Trying to cash in might not be bad business. John

Which again makes it strange that they went Doom --> Birds --> Steiners this week. Arn & Barry would so much be a Dusty type of tag team champions.

But that's the OPPOSITE of what happened here. This is Vince sticking to what I'd imagine to be a long term plan to bring his biggest stars face to face for the biggest show of the year. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to learn from anyone writing about wrestling who doesn't understand, at the most basic level, what wrestling is. Exactly. Haven't we been talking for months about the plan being Punk-Rock at Rumble with Rock winning the title to take it to Mania? I think a lot of us were hoping the Punk would actually get to the Rumble with the title reign intact, and that it was cool as he got through each possible choke point of dropping it (even if for just a quick turn around), so things like retaining at Survivors was cool. The Shield didn't change any of that. Instead, it actually firmed it up by given an excuse for Punk to retain the title and extend the reign over a pair of massively pushed faces (Cena and Ryback). That it hit the wall at the Rumble and backfired just when it looked to work again? That's the payoff. Were people really expecting Punk + The Shield to go on an nWo roll over the WWE for another 12+ months where the faces keep getting fucked over to the point that the fans transition from just being pissed at the heel Punk and instead becoming tired of the same old screwjob happening over and over and over again?

Shoemaker at Grantland: The WWE Since SummerSlam: Was It All a Dream? Or, perhaps... The re-start of the match is the payoff of Punk happily having The Shield save his title reign several times over, only for it to blow up in the end. That is what happens to heels in the end: their evil plots get foiled. John

There really are only two wrestlers with enough matches available to judge: Race and Flair. There isn't a ton of Terry as champ, nor of Brisco, nor of Dory, etc. There might be more of Thesz as champ than there is of Terry and Brisco combined. John

It's also their second bite of the apple in the year. The main evented Budokan in May, which was more of a "cold" build up in terms of Funaki being on a streak going into it. It was more a "new" match in May, similar to Jumbo-Misawa being "new" in June, at least in terms Misawa without the mask. The other difference is Maeda never put Funaki over. Takada was the "younger" guy he put over, twice. The only other job in UWF 2.0 was to Fujiwara, essentially to set up Fujiwara to put over Funaki. That Maeda-Fujiwara didn't make the set either, which is interesting given folks loved their Feb match. John

I always thought it was stupid that they went Doom --> Freebirds --> Steiners so quickly in this period. I thought taking the TV title off Arn (to Zenk) meant they were going to flip the tag titles to Arn & Barry, which made great sense. The Steiners had the US Tag Titles... they didn't need the World Tag Titles again. A match like this showed the value of the Horsemen having the tag titles: they could work against a variety of face teams.

Exactly. Which is largely what I'm walking through above: the shit was written for your average current WWE Fan and your average Attitude Era Fan. It had an internal logic for both that was far beyond simply Russo-style throwing shit at the wall. It actually was pretty simple, hit those simple marks in the script, and gave the fans what they wanted in each instance after Punk fucked over Rock. Pretty well done. John

I keep pointing to loving Taker beating Shawn in back-to-back Manias and then being Hunter in back-to-back Manias. John

Not everything can be a Tiger Driver '91. On the other hand: * Punk was essentially a Bitch Champ down the stretch of his reign * Punk needed The Shield to help him retain the title over faces who were/are stronger than him * those screwed over face challenges * this one tied into prior Punk + Shield finishes * Punk went to the well again here * this one was flipped for Punk to finally get his So there was internal story logic #1. * this one tied into Vince specifically saying he'd strip Punk if they got involved * Punk & Heyman thought they came up with an Evil Plot to trick Vince * Vince saw through it and was going to strip Punk anyway Internal story logic #2. * Rock got screwed by the run in * stripping Punk would left in place Rock getting screwed * Rock asked for the match to re-start to keep from getting screwed * Vince re-started the match Internal story logic #3. * Spinebuster to set up The People's Elbow before the lights went out * Rock "would have won" if the lights didn't go out * full circle to Spinebuster to set up The People's Elbow when the match restarted * no lights out, Rock hit it and won... proving he would have won of The Shield hadn't save Punk earlier Internal story logic #4. Now I won't vouch for the match prior to the spinebuster + TPE + Lights Go Out spot since I haven't had time to sift through it. But the finish... it worked, and in a WWF/WWE context it works pretty damn well. Heel has been fucking faces. Heel told to knock it off. Heel has Evil Master Plan to get away with it again. Heel gets caught. Heel's plan collapses on him. Heel losing the thing he loves most in life. Storybook stuff. John

He hit Hogan with two Rock Bottoms and then hit the People's Elbow. This was different. Two rock bottoms rather than a spinebuster. I think the difference might be: Hogan > Punk When it comes to putting him down. John

My general thought would be: If Hulk Hogan, one of the two biggest stars in history, can lay down to The People's Elbow at WrestleMania... then Punk can lay down to The People's Elbow at the Rumble. I mean... it's perfect for Punk's reign to end by eating the Elbow. And for his fans to look forward to Punk bitching and moaning about it for the next five years. John