killabee

Gibbs & Sharpe going over Putski cleanly? I guess it's not out of the realm of possibility, maybe Putski was a cooperative guy, but I suspect these were probably disqualification or count out wins, you know, Putski is angry & throws the ref out of the way to get his hands on Sharpe, Putski catches Gibbs in a full nelson from the wrong side of the ring apron... seems more likely than either of these guys going over, Gibbs wasn't even typically getting victories over guys like Jones & Lanny Poffo. As for pre-expansion stars who McMahon could've used better from 84 thru 87, I'd pick the Moondogs. They were getting squashed on TV all the time, & mostly taking losses on the house show circuit. That just didn't make much sense to me. I don't think they were deserving of a big push during this time period, but they shouldn't have been losing squashes on TV, they should've been winning them, destroying jobbers on TV. That way, when they'd be on the circuit taking clean losses to babyface teams like the Killer Bees, the Bulldogs, the US Express, the Rougeaus, it would've meant something. By late 84, if a fan saw a Moondog in the ring against a pushed baby, he knew the Moondog was going down. I think McMahon could've squeezed three years or so out of them like this before he started having them squashed on TV.

Ha ha ha. Oh, how I wish there was a shred of truth to this, but there isn't, because I'm a big Sharpe fan. Putski has long been on my list of worst wrestlers, & by 1984 he was God-awful. When he came back jacked up on 'roids, he would blow up just jogging down to the ring. Incredibly, in one of the first WWF shows ever in Ontario in summer 84, & the first WWF show I saw live after the takeover of Maple Leaf, Putski got a clean win over Greg Valentine, who had been an upper card worker on Maple Leaf shows for years at this point. Did they use it to set up a rematch? Nope. Did they do it because they wanted to get Putski over in a new, unfamiliar market? Don't know, because he rarely made appearances in Toronto after that. No, in 84-85, he was generally kept stronger & more well-protected than he should've been, given his lack of abilities & the lack of fan interest in him outside the traditional WWF stronghold in the Northeast. Putski should've been putting more guys over. And putting guys over isn't "shoddy treatment": the fact that a terrible hand like Putski still had a job after the talent influx suggests he was treated very well by his employers. I'm not sure what the WWF could've done better with the former over-the-hill 70s stars they had on staff. Pedro Morales was still popular with some old school fans in the Northeast, so he was kept pretty strong in matches in that region. Jerry Valiant was always a very good worker, & still was in 84-85 as a jobber, but with the WWF typically pushing around 30-40 guys at a time during their national expansion drive, older guys who didn't have "the look" or any sort of positive momentum within the wrestling industry at the time were not likely to have a top spot on the card. Butcher Vachon is a very good example of a former star turned jobber in New York for a good, steady, very goody payday. He'd get squashed on TV in two minutes. Yet, he also got a featured spot on TNT with his wedding, & this was going down the same time his brother the Mad Dog - who is older - was wrestling main events for the WWF in the Midwest. Crusher got some plum spots in his old territory, too. Tony Garea & Rene Goulet, two former 70s stars, became jobbers & then got plum gigs as road agents. SD Jones continued to have a good win-loss record on the house show circuit [better than all jobbers] as late as 1987, & his LJN figure was reportedly quite popular. As for Rocky Johnson, the guy was given a title & a big push & basically pissed it away, no fault of McMahon's. I'm not a fan of McMahon, but I can't see where he ever treated former 70s stars "shabby." Reasoning encouraged? Okay. I'd rather be getting a ridiculously fat guaranteed contract with WCW in 97. Period.