jdw

The full match is pretty mediocre and disappointing. Kind of a sign that Doc was falling off the form of 1996, which was behind his 8/93 - 3/95 peak. John

G1 had the dual storylines: (i) Choshu had never won it and there was a sense *in the building* at the start of the G1 that this was Choshu's last chance (ii) Hash worked the "destroyed knee" angle, which turned the tide and frankly was Hash's story through the rest of the G1 The finish was Hash, the ace of the company, fixed because of the bad wheel, pickings for Choshu to finish, and Choshu having to chop him down. In turn, Hash was like, "Okay fucker... you're going to have to finish me so give it your best." Loss on it: I am totally biased on the matches: I was in the building for the G1 match, and it was one of the greatest spectacles that I've ever seen. "Spectacle" is a word we tend to attach to those Tokyo Dome matches that may not be 6/3/94 but really work as wars in the big setting. Seeing one in Ryogoku... that's pretty damn special. With the Dome match, I was just happy that it was a solid, tough match that wasn't a let down. It didn't have the punch of the match the year before, but it couldn't really without Choshu winning the IWGP.

I thought their 11/90 and 8/96 matches we just as definitive finishes, if not more so. Riki chopping off his head, Hashimoto trying not to lose the fighting spirit in the first and in the second one actually motioning Choshu to go ahead and chop it off... that's pretty definitive.

1987 is easy: Ted comes in as a "face" for a title match with Ric. The rest of the Horsemen turn on Ric, and Ted wins the title. On the interviews Tully dicks it up, JJ gets talks about Flair slipping against Dusty then Nikita and then Barry (always good to name drop the top faces) and needing the Horsemen to always save him (shoot!), Lex has that "I just stand here and look big" look on his face. while Arn does a fiery close to interview that's "it's just business, Ric... it's just business" in theme Ted can talk about how in the 70s everyone talked about how either Flair or DiBiase would be the next dominant champ, that Ric weaseled his way into the title, then used every dirty trick to keep everyone else down... and now the tables have turned. He also can get across that Ric has made an enemy out of every wrestling around the world, and that's he's going to find no friends over in that other locker room (foreshadowing the top faces eventually one-by-one siding with Flair against the Horsemen). Etc, etc, etc. I would have the title change no later than the Bash, which would leave Ted to run as champ from Bash (Jul) to Starcade (Nov)... which may be a little short if the story is red hot. In fact if it is hot, then find a way to extend it... but you also want to avoid that bad taste that Warriors-Arn & Tully caused in Chicago... okay, fuck it... of course you run Starcade '87 in North Carolina and not Chicago. With Ted on top, they could reload the faces that Flair has run through (Dusty, Nikita, Barry) for Ted in addition to Flair-Ted matches... though I think I would save those for post-Starcade, and some additional angle that would have even a Champ Ric looking for revenge (i.e. cage matches). Anyway, if Tully is the big weasel who causes Flair to lose the title to Ted (like he caused Dusty to lose it to Flair), you could roll Flair-Tully matches post-Bash around the horn while Ted vs Other Big Face is the World Title match. Arn & Tully hadn't won the WTT from the R'n'R by the Bash, so that could be postponed. Anyway... 1987 was fairly easy to book if JCP was smart in getting the guys who would be of use to them (largely Ted), or that Vince wouldn't take (The Birds) and letting Vince overpay for the rest (pray that he takes Doc). I really would have avoided NWA vs UWF. I dont' think it's a feud that JCP fans gave a shit about. I cared about a good Birds vs Horsemen feud (or MX & Bubba vs Birds), and didn't care about which promotion they were in. Just take the talent that is of value to you, keep the cities that are of use (which were very few at the time with the shitty economy), and just have a stronger JCP.

The problem is that people hated Trip for his bullshit in 2000. It's not like Trip Hate suddenly popped up in 2006 when a whole bunch of hardcores thought, "Hey... that fucker had been on top for a while now... and he's fucking the owner's daughter to boot! That motherfucker!". Instead, hardcores determined that Trip was a motherfucker in real time as it happened. John

Turning him in 1988 would have been a problem since their big storyline for the year, known in advance, was Flair-Luger with Lex the face. That wasn't a bad plan: the fans popped for Lex, and the feud drew. The difficulty in 1988 was that the rest of the company was falling apart, and they had lost a lot of fans already around the country starting the year before. They got semi-lucky that Sting "took off", though that's a relative thing... perhaps it's more accurate is that he was able to step into a Challenger Role at a time when they had no one else (since Lex was being held for summer), and was able to at least keep the bottom from completely falling out. 1987 was probably the time to turn him face for a run before letting him go back to his more comfortable heel role. That's the year where the bottom fell out of the Challenger Role after Barry: Brad Armstrong (even if a lot of us like him as a solid worker, he couldn't draw and wasn't a national world title challenger level guy), Jimmy Garvin and Ronnie Garvin (again... we all like him, but he's being asked to draw as a face challenger... hard). Their trick would have been to find a Horseman anchor opposite him if the Horsemen turned on him. Too early for Lex to be the "man" of the Horsemen, and it's clearly not a role for either Arn or Tully. Always thought it was a good one for Ted. They also were putting the belt on Sting before the knee blew out, and Flair needed to be a heel for that. Flair was okay with that. Flair in general going back heel wasn't a problem. Timing was a problem: it was probably too soon since he had just turned the prior May/July. On the other hand, time machining back to January 1990, they only really one heel they could run opposite Flair if Flair stayed Face. That would be Lex, who turned heel around the same time Flair turned face. Can you run a nice long Face Flair vs Heel Lex to eat up most of the first part of 1990 before eventually turning Ric heel to face Sting at say Starcade '90? Well... they eventually did fill up most of the first half of 1990 with Flair-Lex, just with them in their natural roles. Didn't do great house show business. The PPV wasn't bad. One would have to rebook Starcade '89 to set it up. But it's perhaps not a bad way to go about it. Don't know when you'd book Flair's turn on Sting, and how you fill out the PPV: Feb: WrestleWar May: Capital Combat Jul: Bash Oct: Havoc Dec: Starcade Assuming Starcade is Sting over Flair... the Flair-Sting turn would probably make for a good October, if you could find the right match for it. Maybe Lex-Flair like this: Feb: WrestleWar - Lex over Flair for title May: Capital Combat - Wargames Jul: Bash - Flair over Lex for the title Don't know who you would team up with Lex if Flair is with the Horsemen (Flair, Sting, Arn and Ole or they really should have brought Tully in or someone else). Then you need to find a heel for Ric to feud with the second half of the year before the turn on Sting. It's complicated. John

This was my argument and I won it. But this piece was written a week and a half ago, so it took some time and forcing the issue up the chain. I thought it was worth the effort. Thanks for all your feedback. It very much was worth the effort. Good in depth writing is a value for us readers.

It's a little confusing whether Herd fired him or Ric breached by no showing, or at least saying he wouldn't show and drop the title. Technically Ric "won" that argument by getting out of the balance of his contract after the short period (i.e. he wasn't able to show up the next night in the WWF). Where Herd fucked up was taking the job. On Flair dropping it... I don't know how one could easily work around Flair taking the position he took. You have a PPV that you're advertising and have built to: Flair vs Lex. Your plan is for Lex to win the title. Ric refuses to do so without an extension. If you don't want to give Ric an extension at the amount he wanted, what do you do? Let Ric work the match and keep the title? "Strip" Ric of the title... and then do what with him the balance of his contract? You can't exactly go on the airwaves and say, "Ric is suspended because he refuses to lose the title". It's kind of fucked up at that point because he's not giving you many options: extension or I refuse to job the title. Again, no sympathy for Herd since he dicked people on contracts, the worst being Steamer, and being a dick on Tully when more than half of Herd's own crew were drunks and dope takers. One gets why Ric wouldn't trust him on an extension down the road. Then again, the extension with a pay cut Ric was offered wasn't unreasonable given WCW was losing money hand over first. No easy solution.

Slight difference: I supported each of Ric's actions in what you quoted. I was a Flair Fan after all. I hated Dusty at the time, and I hated Herd. Even in hindsight, I agree with Ric on the first two: Dusty and Herd were being stupid. On the third... Ric tried to hold the company up. Herd was a dick, and had dicked people on contracts before (like Steamer), so I don't have a massive problem with Flair trying to dick Herd. The point of my trio of posts were to touch on three things that were either passed over quickly in the piece (Flair's issues with WCW Management in the 1988-91 period, and that they were a two-way street) or slighty wrong (Hogan-Flair in the WWF and WCW). They had nothing to do with Flair's Ego.

I didn't say that Dusty wasn't an idiot. Only that Ric pulled a power play against the wished of the booker, and won. Except that Ric had already given up the book, and if his boss wanted to replace him as champ, that's the right of the boss. Right? Or maybe Ric agrees with Bret and doesn't even know it. My posts wasn't about right vs wrong. It was to give examples where Ric refused to do what was asked of him. With any other wrestler, they would be slagged. With Ric, he's a Hero in all three... and even in your version he was the hero in two of them.

I don't think Dallas fans were offended away. Business wasn't great before the Birds came in. Things like Flair might spike a good card, but overall business was just there. It wasn't dead, the Vin Erichs made money, but it wasn't hot or making money hand over fist. Then things got hot. And they had a hot run. It's wasn't 100% hot all through 1983 and 1984 and 1985, so anyone saying they played to 100% capacity for three straight years is full of shit. But... it was a hot territory with a lot of wrestlers, storylines, feuds and matches that fans liked. By 1986... David was dead. Kerry had the accident. Mike wasn't a replacement for either. Kevin was erratic. The Birds feud had been played out as every possible thing with it had been done. Gino died, but he'd also been around for years so he wasn't fresh. The promotion wouldn't push someone up to Vin Erich level for a sustained period, so even if they stumbled upon a Rock to a Von Erich's Austin, he would have had a limit of going through the roof. Fans didn't HATE the product. They just stopped caring about it at the level they did in the prior years. The product just wasn't as compelling. Fans don't have to be driven away. They just have to stop caring as much. I don't think this is terribly complex. Ponder all of our fandom, and all of the people we've come in contact through the years in person or on line who are wrestling fans. Some leave because they hate a certain product. But most just find other shit to do, or don't have time to watch 20 hours of wrestling a week, or post on message boards. I've got an insane amount of pro wrestling on disc sitting around Casa del jdw. But a couple of weekends ago, I preferred to watch the Open with my girlfriend. In turn, for the most part I'd rather spend six hours at the movies with Yohe than spending six hours watching wrestling. What's hitting my dvd player this week is rewatching The Wire... rather than rewatching some old All Japan. I dvr'd United's preseason game yesterday, and Barca's today... and there isn't a single episode of wrestling on the dvr, nor has there been a single one all year. I'm still a wrestling fan. I still talk about it. When I pop in something old to watch, I usually enjoy it (unless I'm popping in something to remind me of something I didn't like). But as far as investing time watching it... I'm about 50 times more likely to watch the episode of Longmire that I dvr'd last might than wrestling. That's not an "exception" to Wrestling Fans. It's the majority. We all know it. People move on. Wrestling has always dealt with that. A part of a successful wrestling business is replacing those who left with New Fans. Some times it's new, younger fans who start watching and dig the old stars as much as the people who've left. Other times it's a new *wrestler* who gets hot and pulls in new fans. But it's a constant thing. It happens in sports as well, but probably with less of a bleed rate. Pro wrestling is... a bullshit garbage form of entertainment. Think of other forms of bullshit entertainment or products and how quickly folks move on from it. On some level it's a surprise that the entire industry hasn't gone completely off the cliff.

I'm not even sold that Sheik "pissed off" the fans. They'd just seen it all for a decade. At some point people move on. Wrestlemania 3 was in Detroit, because it was one of the WWF's hottest cities at the time. Being "dead" doesn't mean in business something is "dead forever". I don't think anyone said every person turned off. But how many promotions in those days survive drawing 1000 a show in their major market? Doubt any did in the 70s. And "1000" doesn't mean the same 1000 come every show. When people move on from / turn off to the product, they often pick and chose the show they go to based on other things in life and/or the card interesting them. Falling out of favor is a form of ill will: people don't give a shit about it any more. We had a wave of Frozen Yogurt stores in the US in the late 80s or early 90s. It was the next big thing. If I gave a shit enough about the product, I could probably remember the 1-2 major chains that everyone was trying to get a franchise from. I'm sure there are still some out there, but it's long since passed it's "Hot Niche Store" days, and a lot of guys who got franchises went bust because... far fewer people give a shit about it. Did anything come to take its place? Not really. It's not like Ice Cream made a huge comeback. Did people loath hate-Hate-HATE the concept? Not really. The masses just stopped giving a shit about it in terms of going regularly. Again, there are still stores out there, and someone is probably doing decent business here and there. But at it's peak, it was a hot as freaking Starbucks and Coffee joints. This is often *not* the case. I don't think there are any campaigns to save Oles / Ace Hardware. People moved on to Home Depot. It doesn't even take a number of years. Things can flip on a promotion quickly. The WWF was drawing with Hogan. Hogan left in 1992 and the business went in the shitter. It wasn't because people had ill will towards the product. It's because they were Hulk Hogan Fans. Vince then went on a quest to find his Next Hogan, and actually failed to create it. Instead, Stone Cold just happened and there was the equiv of Hogan. WCW went in the tank amazingly fast. Kris in the Vince & Hogan vs The World showed some towns that went in the tank fast. Same goes for products. Borders was doing good "revenue" numbers. Then the shit hit, expenses and loans were brutal, revenue didn't grow, then revenues dipped and it went fast. Lots of business have that happen, as do lots of products. There's a reason the St Louis Browns moved to Baltimore. Crows sucked. They had for ages, but there also was something of a taboo of moving franchises. So when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, that opened the floodgates. The Browns moved. The A's moved. The Dodgers and Giants moved, even as the Dodgers were the most "successful" team in the National League... while attendance went down. LA of course was great for them. The Senators moved. The A's and Braves moved again... the second Senators moved. Etc. In a sense, all of those franchise died in their cities and moved elsewhere. Happened in other sports. In a sense, many of those football clubs have died several times. They've been saved by new owners buying them and carrying them. The Owls would be a dead club unless someone bought them. My thought would be to not get hung up on concepts like "ill will". Products, clubs, businesses die for all sorts of reason. They almost always fall into two buckets, which often overlaps: * management fucks up * people stop giving as much of a shit about the product John

Yeah... I get how editing can be a pain in the rear. As far as long... once I scroll past the text on the first window, look over the the right hand side and see how much more there's left in the article by gauging the lack of significant movement in the scroll bar, I'm all: "Woo-hoo~! Long in depth article! Awesome!" It's one of the ironies of the online world of reporting: Newspaper articles get shorter and shorter, while a lot of the better long form writing has moved online. If it's good stuff, people will read it. I know there's a balance on standard reporting (such as writing up a UFC card), but with Feature Writing... editors gotta let their writers go. Some tightening up when it's rambling (wait... why is everyone looking at me), but more info is good. Anyway, I like when you've been able to stretch out like this and the item on UFC contracts. Online writing doesn't mean folks need to dumb it down into USA Today length all the time.

You've have to think about whether 3 crews or 2 crews are better. One key thing is that you need to keep the average attendance up. You need money to keep everyone from jumping to Vince. Guys in JCP in 1986 were making enough money not to think about it too much, especially guys in the top 4 or so matches. But by 1987... things started changing. Also, if you're trying to protect FL and Baltimore, you really don't want to run "weak" cards. You're not going to get Flair every card like JCP basically did in 1986 (very few dates with the rest of the NWA that year). What a Merged Promoter could try to do is lobby the NWA for the same number of dates that Flair gave to JCP+GCW+CWF in 1982 and see if they buy it. But still the point would be is that you wouldn't have Flair anchoring 1 of 3 cards every night. Which makes me think 2 to 2.4 crews would be better. I'd also try to re-align the promotion into "monthly" in the major cities, possibly 8-10 in some place like Baltimore (and Philly if you move there). Every 3 weeks strikes me as too much: JCP ran Greensboro and Charlotte a ton in 1986... something like 16-17 times. It's rather focus on getting all my core shows a strong card every month (10-12 cards a year), not burn through programs so fast, and make sure every city is doing well. Maybe a 2.5 crews, with two major crews and a third one that you could run in the smallest of towns. The thing is... no one would want to be on that 3rd crew that ain't drawing. I don't know how much I'd treat it as a "split", though I'm not sure if that's what you mean by "circuits". The WWF just had one large promotion. We know that worked, while the Brand Split was less effective. I like crews: you have your US Champ, WTT, your Flair world title match when he's around, your Dusty Feud (who i'd try to treat as Andre rather than chasing any titles as he typically did)... etc. The US Champ may anchor one crew, the WTT the other crew, mixing and matching the crews as needed. If you're going into Baltimore, you might do a combined crew for a deeper card with the balance of the talent working somewhere else. You've seen how the the WWF did stuff when you were knee deep in the results. A crew would hit a part of the territory (which for the WWF was the entire country), so they'd hit SoCal, AZ, NV, NoCal and some other western things. Hogan might be working another part of the country. I think a Merged Promotion would want to do the same thing. One crew hitting FL and GA, while the other hitting JCP... then flipping so each major feud had it's run in the cities. Sometimes you alternate... other times you run the feud straight through in a region before flipping: Hogan-Savage was on the 12/85, 1/86 and 2/86 MSG cards... before Tito-Savage took over on 3/86, 4/46, 5/86, 6/86 & 7/86 cards... with the last two being the tag team versions (and also with Hogan on the 4/86 cards). It's complex. Of course JCP was doing that back in the 70s with split crews, and made it work. I just wouldn't want to water down cards when there's a War going on. A Merged Promotion couldn't lose Florida or Baltimore. Don't have to "win" those cities by routing the WWF, but you need to wrestle to a draw in Baltimore, and more than hold your own in FL.

It was a long, slow death through 1982. Did Shire have TV issues before or after that? I thought the blow was off the promotion before Rose, and that was one of the next major nails. Yep. Sheik rolled in so much money for so long that he never thought of changing much. You have to wonder if Sheik's "hot period" had taken place starting in 1975 instead of 1965 (for a 1965-76 run), and Vince went to war with Det in 1984, would Sheik have been a Lawler who could withstand it, or would his promotion have been so one-note that after close to decade of the same thing, would fans turn to Hogan. The thing with Jerry is that he could work the mic. Even then, the best days of Memphis business were done not long after WWF expansion. That's doing business for a long time. How much AWA talent (i.e. Brain and his teams) did the use while still drawing well?

Yep... pretty much what I was thinking. CWF was running regular right up until Vince rolled the trucks in, but it wasn't especially strong at that point, and Dusty was already heading out to JCP. Just running shows isn't enough when you've got a killer coming after you. Again, not totally sold that a JCP+GCW+CWF "merger" in 1983 could have kept Vince out, but it probably would have resulted in a stronger "JCP" business in Florida, and perhaps at worst been similar to Philly and Baltimore as battlegrounds. That's what Vince's areas were: battle grounds. If Vince "won" or battles to a long term "draw" in his core cities, he would have also won in those non-core areas as well: a hot product in Chicago would have worked in Denver. Ohio... that just seems like a state that Vince would have rolled unless Verne was super established in it, like he was in IL/MN. I don't think GCW was strong enough to hold out, and if we're thinking of a JCP+GCW+CWF merged promotion, you wonder if it's resources being taken away from (i) doing strong business in the JCP core, (ii) keeping Atlanta a strong draw, (iii) protecting Florida, (iv) keeping the GCW investment in Maryland/Baltimore alive, and (v) possibly pondering Philly invasion. Ohio was a great state for Vince to take, but if we're thinking of Super JCP, then Florida feels like a better fit, and you don't really want a sink hole in a war with Vince while you're trying to get three promotions integrated into one. I almost would be tempted in 1983 to "sell" it to Verne, and let Verne be a beach head. It also keeps you from wasting your dates of Flair in that state, instead using your dates in the core, and Baltimore. He went balls out. No one had that vision. I'm not sure how massive TBS was in those days. WTBS had 2M subs in the late 70s, and that's what CNN launched with. Cable penetration really didn't take off until a bit later.

I think wrestling in the 70s was pretty similar to baseball in the 50s: people remember it with rose tinted shades, but the reality is the the business was unhealthy in a lot of places. SoCal and NoCal were fading as the decade went on. Det died. Bruiser's Indy promotion was fading / faded. It would be interesting to see someone do a history of wrestling in Ohio, because it seemed to fade with Al Haft and the others who ran it in the 50s.

I would group them: Midwest Detroit Indianapolis (WWA doesn't count) SoCal Los Angeles San Diego NoCal Sacramento San Jose And these got monthly action at best San Francisco The AWA was making a go of it, but it's safe to say that NoCal was effectively "open". I'd add in Tucson as well as a city that could be "moved into". The WWF tended to wisely run shows in both. If we created in out mind a mythical "Western Promotion" that sprung up to to be similar to the AWA in the mid-west or more so the WWF in the Northeast. then the Phoenix/Tucson "swing" would be part of running the territory. I seem to recall Bix mentioning that this was part of the PNW territory? Still, the Portland territory was a weaker one that was very open to being rolled over by someone like Vince with bigger guns and exposure. I thought that had been in the hands of Verne for a while. Vince going after it was part of his multi-front war against the AWA, knowing they had the best markets next to (i) his own, and (ii) the open ones. Like we've talked about, Vince strategy was pretty easy: kill the AWA and take the open major cities = Victory. GCW had these? Easy pickings for Vince since they were well out of GCW's "core", and GCW was past it's peak when Vince went to war. Even in a JCP+GCW+CWF scenario, these might have been tough for JCP to hold. They were on a path connecting Vince to the AWA, so he was going to fight hard for them, if not early, then no later than after he killed off the AWA. I always felt that MI, OH and IN were expansion slots for Verne if he had been more proactive in say 1982 (i.e. building towards Hogan As Champ). They just fit in better with his core. Verne had SLC. Did he have Vegas as well? It's kind of an odd appendage. Yep. I don't think GCW impacted many fans around the country when it got on the air. The territory here in SoCal and up in NoCal died without it having an impact. There also was about zero chance of GCW ever going up to New York and killing the WWF off. From a promotional standpoint, Vince didn't use cable as much in expansion as he did Syndication. The local shows were pushed on the syndication, which I don't recall at all on the cable (other than the city flashing by on the list of cities they'd be in that month). Almost all of the angles on cable were those run in Syndy, with the major exceptions being those on the network. I wouldn't say cable was a zero to Vince, but it was well behind Syndication and then SNME.

Maryland --> Virginia --> NC --> SC --> Georgia --> Florida JCP+GCW+CWF would basically claim the coast from the Mason-Dixon down to the Keys. Of course Maryland was a battleground state: the WWF was very succesful in 1982/83 in Baltimore and DC, and had been for ages. GCW wasn't as established there. However, JCP did do very good business there. In turn, Vince always would try to turn FL into a battleground state, with Hogan likely an effective tool there. My point was more in getting established there. In terms of population, Watts didn't have a pot to piss in compared to getting GCW and FCW merging with JCP. Also in the sense of TV markets: Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, St Pete, Ft Laud out strip what Watts could add. Territories and cities die. It's always happened in the history of wrestling. Even New York died in the late 30s and took more than a decade to rebuild. It's common any just about everything. Products die. Sports teams die. Televisions networks go in the tank (look at most of NBC). Etc. There's no reason to think this doesn't happen in wrestling. John

Whoops... double post.

I think Kris and I and other covered most of this in the Vince & Hogan vs The World thread. Someone was going to go national with the rise of cable. Some already were, and some massive population areas were wide open (CA being the most obvious, but MI and OH and IN in varying degrees as well) as 1982 wrapped up. The WWF was the most obvious because they had the largest base. That also gave them something to fall back on in case they failed. The AWA was the second most obvious, because the had key markets, a good core business, pretty decent location for expansion. Of course they didn't have a lot of vision. I'm not 100% certain that "WWF Rivals" had to expand massively on a national basis, or that All Of The NWA Had To Unify to survive. We've talked about JCP, and that if they and their Eastern Seaboard promotional brothers had some vision they might have combined into something more than just JCP + GCW's dead husk. JCP+GCW+CWF would have been a pretty strong core base to grow from if they joined hands 1983, took Flair with them (even in the sense of conning the rest of the NWA into more dates), and made some key signings. We ralked in the thread about Vince targeting Florida: in the South, Florida and Texas matter. He won Florida. He didn't win JCP-ville or GCW-land, despite buying GCW. If they could have maintained a strong hold in Florida the other two, then they have a better base to build on. Would a strong FL market (i.e. as strong as their core was when they were "hot") have been more valuable to JCP than their efforts in California? Certainly while JCP was still alive, before Turner bought them. It also would have been useful in keeping Vince out of it if they had the success they had in JCP+GCW in keeping Vince out. It's small and you always have a risk of Vince stealing your talent. But if even a handful (i.e. 5 promoters from the AWA and NWA) had some vision, they probably could have carved out two strong expanded territories that could have survived Vince's onslaught. Of course one of them would have had to have been the AWA, with Hogan as champ. But we've already talked about that: Verne didn't have the vision for it, and even if he did... Vince would have still expanded and eventually just backed up the brinks truck to Hogan to steal him. New York? You don't think that would play to Hogan's ego, along with his money lust? The "territories" as they'd been in the 60s and 70s were doomed, and they already were dying to a degree by the early 80s. Detroit was dead. The old strong Ohio based offices were long since shells. SoCal was dead, as was NoCal, two promotions that had some hot times in the 60s and 70s. I suspect if we looked at all the offices of the 60s and 70s that there were others that fell off. But larger territories in the face of a national promotion? Suspect that there would have been life there, especially given how USA Network for the WWF wasn't the only cable company on the dial. Dittos the increased ease of syndicating to more markets within your territory. Which gets back to the core reason why it was doomed: Wrestling promoters had no vision. They were use to operating monopolies. If something fell in their lap like a new city, then it was easy. A new competitor with massive resources and killer ways of fighting you? Well beyond them. Cable was part of it. The already existing issue of major territories dying was part of it. Lack of vision was just as much.

Iron Sheik in WCW was pretty batshit. Of course this one:

That would have been in Mid-Atlantic, which he didn't go to until late 1979. The problem is the one that Dylan pointed to earlier in the thread: the widely circulating AWA matches that have him (with Bock and Pat as partners) don't show flashes of "he, this guy is good". I don't know if I've seen a Patterson match from the 70s where I thought Pat was putting on a sublime great performance, and often thought he was disappointing in his matches against Backlund for what Frank long ago dubbed "fifth of gin selling". That said, there are a good number of performances where Pat is flashing very good stuff. His match with Inoki isn't great or anything, but he shows a well rounded skill set it in. His best match with Backlund (not the cage match or Philly matches) is a pretty good match, and Pat's a pro in it. Pat's AWA stuff that's widely out there shows him shinning as well in spots. With Stevens... not really there. In his matches pairing with Bock, it really comes across that Bock is better. You don't even see "ring general" bullshit out of Stevens helping build a base for the match, like you'd see with Ole when he paired with Arn even if you got the vibe that Arn was carrying the work for his side. Then on the other side of Stevens is often Billy, who is on another freaking planet of greatness. Then there's the match in Toronto with Steamer & Youngblood where Stevens is partner with Snuka, and it's Snuka played in the Mid-Atlantic heal making the face's look good. I can't remember if in the past when we've talked about this if Kevin has pointed to some Stevens matches where he does show those flashes, even if simple ring generalship stuff. Matches that aren't the usual suspects that have popped up on WWF releases or hit Classics. Like Kevin, I'm 100% certain that wrestlers aren't talking out of their asses that he was great~! But what I've seen has shown it. In contrast, there's a Destroyer & Snuka vs Jumbo & Steamer match from 05/29/81 that's 2/3 falls, and even when well past his prime you get some flashes of The Destroyer being The Destroyer. Dick was almost 51 at the time... of course there's the match with Mil in 1974 when he was 44. Stevens was 44 when he left the AWA in 1979 for Mid-Atlantic. :/

Only thing I could think to add to the article would be more about WCW's long efforts to replace Ric on top: * Dusty wanting to put Rick Steiner over him at Starcade '88 Ric pulled a power play with the Turner Execs and won. No job, and actually pinned Lex on the card despite being the heel. * Herd wanting Ric to put over Lex for the title March 23, 1990 Ric refused and invoked a clause in his contract that wasn't to dissimilar from the famous "creative control" clause in Bret's WWF contract. Ric didn't do the job that night. * Herd wanting Ric to job to Lex than Barry in July 1991 The plan was for Ric to put over Lex at the Bash. Ric was okay with it in general, but also knew that his long term security was at risk without the title. He wanted a contract extension. I'd have to go back and look, but I think he had another year left on his contract. Herd had offered an extension, but it was at a cut that Ric didn't like. Anyway, he was clearly holding up WCW: give me a new contract extension at an amount I want, or I'll invoked my contract clause and refuse to job it to Lex at the Bash. So Herd then had Flair booked against Barry on the final TV taping leading into the Bash, with the instructions that Flair drop the title to Barry. The thought that Ric wouldn't refuse to drop it to his friend Barry, who in turn would drop it to Lex at the Bash. Ric refused, no showed, and was "fired". Which is what led him to the WWF for the first time. Anyway, it's a generally glossed over part of Ric's career. In the Our Hero Ric Hierography, these are three shining examples of Ric standing up against Evil Wrestling Bookers/Promoters (Dusty was generally thought of by hardcores as an egotistical selfish bookers in those days, and Herd was a hated promoter among hardcores almost from the start). In reality... Ric pulled power plays, refused to job the title when asked/booked three times, and tried to hold the company up for a big extension. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that. It is after all what Hogan did regularly in WCW.

This was far worse. Arn's Tonya Harding impression was early in the Clash. Hogan didn't just to a Stretcher Job, he did a Hospital Job. Not only did he come back to the arena, he then kicked the shit out of Ric for 15 minutes before Sheri caused the DQ. Just an all-time classic Fuck You by Hulk.