Dylan Waco

Bumping this because I was talking to Bix about this yesterday and with the talk about Slaughter I thought this might be an interesting topic for discussion. One popular talking point that the WWE and others have run with throughout the years is that the loss of Hogan killed the AWA dead. I think if you look at the data pulled together by Kris in his thread on the WWE expansion and combine it with the data I pulled together in the Blackwell and Patera threads it is obvious that isn't true. While it would be a stretch to say the loss of Hogan was irrelevant, the fact is the AWA was still making money long after Hogan departed. While the slump in the middle of 84 was bad, it also just happened to coincide with the companies hottest act Jerry Blackwell going out with an "injury" angle after being turned face in a huge battle royal that sold out St. Paul. When Blackwell returned attendance started to creep back up and by years end they were able to draw 16k in St. Paul - damn near a sellout - for Blackwell/Bundy v. The Roadies. In fact 84 probably had as many or more 10k pus shows as any year in AWA history and though the war was in full swing and taking it's toll in 85 they drew far better than some people would have you believe. I think the AWA would have died due to Vince's expansion no matter what, but in looking at the twists and turns of the company it is clear Verne aided and abetted it with a variety of shit promoting and booking decisions. In March of 85 - when the company was still relatively strong with consistently good figures coming out of the majority of loop towns (including red hot SLC, Winnipeg holding strong and 10k plus figures more often than not in St. Paul/Chicago) Verne decides to expand to other areas. This expansion would be sort of bizarre as he appears to have tried to open a Western flank and an Eastern flank. The Eastern flank is semi-understandable - they were trying to build off of the PWUSA tv. There first solo foray into the Meadowlands did 10k which is not bad at all and they also managed to do a really strong number in New Haven CT around this time. I still think this was unwise as they were under full frontal assault on their home front and yet had shown they could survive if they devoted their energy and resources. Taking the war to Vince made no sense as a survival strategy, especially since they had been able to maintain a large portion of their fanbase in the key loop towns, despite some setbacks. Still at least the East swing had some logical foundation. The West swing just seems delusional for a variety of reasons, the most obvious of which is that the expansion would take them AWAY from the area where they had a historical base on their loop. The AWA had run Denver, SLC, Vegas and San Fran for years by this point. Of those towns San Fran was by far the weakest town, though they actually had some relatively solid numbers from the late 84/early 85 period. They ran one or two shows in LA which would have at least been a logical spot based on the existing Vegas/San Fran connection (though that is a really large area of territory). But the primary Western expansion was an attempt to pull into Vancouver, BC and Alaska. No attempt to run established wrestling areas in Oregon (still under Owen's domain, but clearly trending down as this was right around the time Buddy was finishing up) or even smaller spot shows along the way to build up a loop heading in that direction. Instead the guys were abandoning the profitable towns to run places like Anchorage where 2k plus was impressive but had to have been a net money loser. Even worse than this both of these expansions diluted the talent at a point where they really needed the talent concentrated in the core areas. The AWA was low on stars, but they still had names that were loyal and could draw as a package. Adnan, Sarge, Blackwell, Bockwinkel, Martel (in Canada mainly but still), The High Flyers, and The Roadies all had the ability and track record to draw - in the AWA towns. Of those only the Roadies and possibly Martel were likely to leave Verne in the immediate. By running split crews to open up new towns far from the AWA loop/base Verne was essentially helping to kill the power centers he had. On top of this there were some awful decisions made post-StarCage in late April of 85. That event had drawn 12-13k to the Civic Center, a number that may have been mildly disappointing due to the depth of the card, but a number that was absolutely within the realm of "good" for the Twin Cities (by comparison the first AWA card without Hogan there in Nov of 83 - when in fact I believe Hulk had been advertised - drew roughly the same number and was rightfully considered a success). In the immediate aftermath they ran a string of successful shows built around a variety of Cage matches, including one headlined by the High Flyers that drew very well in Winnipeg and a swing into San Fran and SLC that did huge numbers for those towns (actually SLC did something like 10,500 which was fucking massive and one of the biggest numbers I've ever seen from the AWA in a town that was traditionally very hot for them) built around Slaughter/Hennigs v. Roadies/Ellering and Adnan v. Blackwell double main events. You could argue that this was hot shotting that would burn out the town on gimmicks and I have no doubt that hurt. But what hurt more was taking Blackwell and the Roadies off the loop immediately after this run. To be fair to Verne he may not have had a choice. Blackwell may have had medical issues and the Roadies may have had bookings elsewhere. Whatever the case may be, it was at this point that business clearly took the turn into "bad." SLC and Winnipeg had been their most consistent and reliable towns (not highest drawing due to Chicago and the Twin Cities being bigger venues) - they immediately shit the bed. St. Paul plummeted to a record low of less than 2k and the Rosemount pulled in only 4k. The Freebirds were on or near the top of a lot of these shows and it clear they didn't mean a god damn thing to the AWA audience. The AWA doesn't draw another card of note til early August when they run a gimmick main event in SLC with Slaughter/Gagne v. Larry Z/Bock that does almost 8k. Just as Sarge appears to be putting a little bit of momentum together as a main eventer, they go on a four day Alaska swing before flipping the crew and shipping them out to Boston days later. Blackwell returns in late August and the Roadies are still gone. The AWA has one last huge blowout with SuperClash in Sept. drawing 20k in Chicago. Largely forgotten is that the next night they did 2k on home soil in St. Paul on a show that saw an absolutely abysmal use of all of their top names. With The Roadies, Sarge and Blackwell they had a reasonably strong run through Nov and while the figures were disappointing in Dec they were not at the level of "holy fuck this is terrible" they had been absent those guys a few months early. The first major show of 86 at the Rosemont does 13k for a big double main event with Blackwell/Roadies v. Birds and Sarge v. Hansen for the AWA title. Of course they had Wrestlerock which did okay later in the year, a massive super show that did great in SLC further down the road and a couple of strong figures for rare Blackwell title matches v. Hansen. Other than that the AWA was basically dead in 86. This is kind of rambling at this point but the point I'm getting at is that the booking and promoting errors of Verne hurt him at least as much as the same errors hurt Crockett in their war with Vince. If Verne doesn't try to expand, doesn't run split crews, manages to keep Blackwell, The Roadies and Sarge (who's dates were also scaled back some) booked, and made stronger use of the talent he had (perhaps a Sarge v. Blackwell feud for example) he could have been running successfully along his regular loop for far longer.

Number of World champs is the wrong metric to look at. The better metric is number of participants in the business and that is where the figures are really astounding as their are far fewer black wrestlers than you would expect both based on their percentage of the population and their respective numbers in other athletic and entertainment fields. The reason seems pretty obvious - wrestling was a good old boys network and "those people" weren't going to get in.

I'm not going to interject politics here more than it should be, but it's notable that Hitchens own brother hates him. Yes Peter has drastically different views but still. Also notable that Hitch shit on guys on like Gore Vidal and Edward Said who were supposedly close friends the moment that he thought there was money to be made or career advancement to be had at their expense. He was openly working a contrarian gimmick and that's pretty much the only way he would have worked in a wrestling context.

I can't imagine any human being less likable than Christopher Hitchens. He would have been a great heel.

The first two weeks of the Snowman feud are available on youtube and really great stuff. The rest of this stuff Loss and Will have uncovered really needs to see the full light of day ASAP. I can't wait for it. Also I'm glad you liked Sabu v. Gang Johnny. I love the way Gang bumped for Sabu, and Sabu's crazy dive to the floor looks fucking insane in that match

Jerry Lawler v. Steve Keirn This is a title v. title match from 1990 with Lawler as the traveling defender of the USWA crown v. local PWF champ Keirn. The Arena is really sparsely populated and DDP and Lee Marshall are on commentary both opening cheering for Keirn. Match has a shit finish but is a really fun heel performance from Lawler who takes a totally insane bump off of the first lock up and spends the rest of the match doing his staple foreign object spots, cowering into the arms of everyone he can find including a camera man, et. Worth watching for sure. Cool video package from Memphis on the Lawler/Patera feud from 83 including clips from the MSC match where Patera beat him for the title. Looks like the outline of a really great match

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUDrII1ABx8 Tenryu/Kitahara v. Koshinaka/Kimura This was a launching pad for the WAR v. NJPW feud. Tenryu does the least in this and is still easily the star of the match as his facial expressions and posturing are really something to behold. I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like his performance here. Koshinaka is a much better heel than face and does a great job keeping the insanely hot Korakuen crowd going, though I hated his selling the first parts of this. Finish run was pretty great. Chaotic as hell match and the ending stuff with Saito was awesome too.

Cornette produces the pay stubs from Crockett during this era in the Midnight Express book. Now I'm sure Corny and the boys were making more money than Sam Houston and Pez Whatley, but I doubt they were making far more than Magnum or Nikita (if they were making more at all). And from what I could tell they were doing fairly well

I fucked up in not mentioning IWA-MS

You still don't grasp how these sets are made do you?

San Fran was not a good town for Verne. He popped it from time to time, but more often than not it was pretty shit business compared to the rest of the territory. Vegas was solid, but may have been the smallest venue of all their big towns. Phoenix was not a regular stop on the loop based on anything I've seen. SLC was a huge town for Verne. In terms of attendance it was beneath only the Twin Cities and Chicago. Denver was also a good town for Verne

To keep this going a bit, who would that have been? Let's say Sarge doesn't get the years-long reign Hogan got. Who beats him? Orndorff? Piper? Kinda interesting to think about that, too. No heel would have kept the belt for long and I think the answer of who the transition champ would have been depends on who the planned next recipient was. If it was Hogan I could almost seen them giving the title to someone like a Kamala or a Bundy. If it was someone like JYD I could see it being Piper

I'm trying to wrap my head around Slaughter v. Piper. I imagine it would have been great but it would have been interesting to see how they would have booked it. I wonder if they would have even worked Sarge opposite Piper or if they would have tried to pair him off with another foreign heel right out of the Iron Sheik feud. I will say that Sarge v. Kamala seems like it would have been an awesome feud on paper for Vince

I should be clear. Slaughter could not have been Hogan and would never have worked THAT well. I do think Sarge is one of a handful of guys who could have had a really big peak run "in his place" though if that makes sense.

This is an interesting question because Slaughter was a draw, could work and was already a crossover star by that point with GI Joe. I do think his gimmick was more limited than Hogan's was in some respects as even though both were jingoistic rah-rah America characters, Slaughter being a military figure was even more cartoony on some level. On the other hand that may have been a plus during that era. No way in hell I can see Sarge as a RockNWrestling vanguard leader though. On the other hand it is possible that Sarge could have opened up some of Crockett area quicker with the right opponent. I would have loved to see him work Patera and think it would have drawn.

I was there live. One of the craziest things I've ever seen in person

Get Will's Funk Set

I can't find the copy I had floating around on disc, does anyone have the 77 Dundee v. Lawler match or no if it is up online?

Any substantial amount of LA footage would be nice. There are clips of Chavo v. Terry Funk, really wish that existed in full.

Am I imagining this or did there used to be a best match by year thread here?

Far be it from me to defend Lance Storm, but there are other guys who are considered nice guys in the business that can be big time douchebags from time to time. We all can really.

Flair v. Hogan from Uncensored 99 was very similar to Hogan v. Sting from TNA last year in that it shouldn't have worked, logically there were obvious problems and I can see why people would hate it, but they were both thoroughly enjoyable matches to me.

Could and did often ruin perfectly good matches with an egregious no sell. I don't mind the Hulk Up in principle as I think fired up babyface comebacks are important parts of wrestling. But the way he would come back from something like Savage's elbow or Vader's powerbomb was just dogshit.

I have no clue what this means

That Hogan v. Sting match was perversely entertaining and far better than it had any right being. Another one of my favorite "this is classic Hogan" moments was when he made the save for Eugene at Mania. Here you have a guy who is supposedly mentally retarded being ridiculed and attacked by guys who are effectively being presented as Sami Al-Arian terrorist sympathizers if not outright terrorists at that point and Hogan just sort of saunters to the ring soaking in the adulation in the process. It sounds like I'm shitting on him, but I'm really not as it was pretty much exactly what you would expect and even want out of a Hulk appearance.