CarpetCrawler

I don't know if Dave elaborates on this or not, but Muraco was asked to take a drug test by Nick Bockwinkel, who was the agent at the time, and threatened to get physical with Nick if he asked again. JYD got so drunk he got into the aisle of a tour bus and pissed down the aisle in front of other passengers. Vince was always kind of ready to cut the JYD loose and only brought him back in late 1987 kicking and screaming so I'm sure he was more than happy to have an excuse now.

What made it make even less sense is by all accounts, including Okerlund's himself, Face to Face took a TON of production work, even more than the regular old house show promo stuff that they used to do around the horn in the 80s/early 90s. When Okerlund did it, they changed the format so that Okerlund HAD to be there for each individual house show promo because they had him "live" in the studio looking in on the debate the face and heel were having and interjecting with his own opinions. I'm baffled Okerlund took it on, but part of me thinks it was so he could leverage himself into getting a bigger money deal. All-American had the best ratings it had had in a long time (part of me wonders if the addition of Bobby Heenan as the regular co-host was the real reason for that) and with him doing Face to Face, I could definitely see him thinking this was his in.

That never changed. When Okerlund finally bounced for good in Fall 1993 (he was being used more than he wanted to and felt he should've been paid more if that was going to be the case, using high ratings for All-American Wrestling as justification) he was going around telling anyone with ears that he hadn't had a meaningful conversation with Vince in like, a year and a half. And then he tried asking for his job back with Vince in 1996 after WCW wouldn't give him a raise during contract renewal time. Vince wouldn't give him a look, period, and it led to Okerlund having to re-sign with WCW afterall.

From the sounds of the guy's post on Reddit, it's not coming back anytime soon.

I'm still bummed that Jim Cornette's Talking Sense got shut down. That was a great channel for bite-sized portions of the show.

And you can't say Vince didn't give him a chance in that regard. He had two different runs with Hogan, including having him interfere in matches involving Hogan at shows and making him challenge Adonis in anger for the next event at that arena. Holy moly. I wonder what those ads would have look like. As always this thread delivers in so many ways. Never knew about the Orndorff pitching himself to be in the Horsemen story. Really loving your work!!

I heard the same thing but had the same theory, a retcon. They did a lot of random stuff with him, including giving him Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" as his theme for a handful of TV syndicated show matches. They started with the "Relax with Trudi"/S&M gear stuff and then slowly transitioned into random stuff like having him say "I hope everyone has a gay new year" during the year end 1985 promos for syndicated TV. Same as mine as well, especially with Steele's comments on his 1986 Timeline.

It's been a mystery that I've always wanted to know the answer to but the main players involved either passed away or probably wouldn't even talk. George Steele in his 1986 Timeline KayfabeCommentaries shoot kind of insinuated that Adonis really liked the gimmick because of how much heat it gave him (though this could just mean that Adonis was indeed being punished but he saw it as an opportunity to get easy heat), though the story I've always heard is that Vince gave it to Adonis as, indeed, punishment for being irresponsible about his weight, fitness, and attitude. Adonis was shot up to upper midcard/house show main event status pretty fast after being given the "Adorable" gimmick by being matched up against Hogan in the late Spring/early Summer, including a match that aired on PRISM for the Spectrum. Heck, even in early 1986 he was doing matches with Hogan. I wonder if Vince appreciated how into the gimmick Adonis was and saw it as a new spring in his step. I also wonder if losing the backstage fight to Dan Spivey in the Summer of '86 already made him lose some of his tough guy luster in Vince's eyes and attitude problems or whatever gave Vince the chance to suspend him or cut him loose for a little while. Clearly Titan was ready and prepared for a backup because Piper was almost flawlessly transferred into feuding with Muraco and Orton since they were already henchmen for the Adonis attack anyway and there was intrigue in two former best friends fighting each other on the house show circuit. Adonis' entire run from 1985-87 was a fascinating enigma. Like, what did "Relax with Trudi" mean? Also they filmed a squash with him and even a ton of local post-WM III house show promos with him so it sounds like they were going to keep going with him even after he lost the Hair Match, but then he just kinda gets fired again for what I think Dave said was general poor conduct. Either way, it's really fun and interesting to speculate about it.

Vince did this in 1991 as well when the new studio audience format Prime Time Wrestling he started after he broke up the Monsoon-Heenan combo flopped hard. Sean Mooney was the victim this time.

From the way I had heard it, she had a meltdown in the locker room and was repeating "I just want to go home" over and over again from burnout.

That specific newsletter has had some of the more tabloid-ish shit out of everything in this thread so far, it's almost National Enquirer-level of tabloid.

One of the first huge signs to Steele that something was wrong was failing this physical; he had Crohn's Disease and still didn't know it at this point. After another poor physical the next Summer is when he decides to finally see a doctor. Once he learns he has Crohn's he decides to hang it up for good and become an agent. lmao

Rad, thanks for the clarification. Was curious because he would often disappear for spurts for the rest of his wrestling career after his original run and I'm guessing when he came back it was under the condition that he was given a much more relaxed schedule. And then he came back one final time in 1990 to put over Earthquake. Around then is also when they started phasing out airing random cards on the USA Network so I can see USA griping and not even realizing the direction the WWF was going with their cards. And then they would sort of placate USA with the weekly Prime Time show that would air random matches from the monthly cards. This has often been said to be the case but it's not true; Heenan did appear on an episode or two of Championship Wrestling right before the first Wrestlemania as Orndorff's manager. He had a gimmick with Heenan where Heenan would bring out a stretcher for job guys after doing the piledriver. Just one of those cases of "conventional wisdom" that have turned out to be not true at all. Also that collection of Dave and his neverending crisis with the O key are fantastic. Thank you so much for all these great tidbits.

Foley was the most non-factor I have seen him in a guest spot I think ever. He existed to get pepper sprayed.

lmao at Heyman peeking in from the cell door like he's overhearing a private conversation.

I'm curious when the timeframe is of the two Hillbilly Jim tidbits. Any idea what the date was for those two newsletters?

Oh man those newspaper clipping scans are awesome. That's the kind of stuff I wish there was an archive of in general. That's weird because it was typically WWF's M.O. at the time to let the new guy work a decently lengthy match with a prelim worker to show off his arsenal. Even Bundy's MSG matches after his first two were a TV feature match-length match with Swede Hanson and then almost seven minutes with Tony Garea. And even for the first two, considering his entire appeal was squashing guys in a few minutes...

I've heard that Orton Holiday Inn story before. I think even Bob has confirmed it. The Baby Doll/Wendi Richter bit is awesome, I had no idea. Also, holy shit at that Ivan Koloff/Iron Sheik flag joke. I know 1980s Dave was a lot snarkier and a lot more of an asshole but god damn. Also that "I went down to complain to Strongbow in person" thing reads like the fakest "and the entire bus clapped" nonsense. I love the shit that would get published in these newsletters. Also cracking up at Steve Beverly because I completely forgot about him. After getting out of the pro wrestling community, he tried to become a game show insider (a game show Dave Meltzer) with his own online insider newsletter, and he even did long Meltzer-like obits for game show hosts, announcers, and producers who had passed away. The newsletter and site are long gone. I remember him being so oddly full of himself over the most random stuff and most people in the community didn't like him that much for that reason. I guess it paid off though because he has been used as a talking head on Game Show Network documentaries. Please keep doing these, I had a blast reading this entire thread!!

Wiz managed Don Muraco during his early 1980s heel runs and they would do promos together, it was fantastic stuff. There's a promo where Vince asks him why the fans like to boo him and Don so much and he says something like "McMahon, the booze in the fans is why you hear those boos". Wiz was the man.

Tito is awesome. He has an awesome match on the March 1985 MSG show that's like two weeks away from Wrestlemania. The crowd clearly knew he wasn't going to win the title two weeks before Valentine's big match with JYD but Tito is so good that he has the crowd in the palm of his hand with the near falls. He doesn't get nearly enough love.

Watching Jack Gallagher on a live stream play some Fire Pro Wrestling with people on a video game website I enjoy and follow. He's a real cool dude. He's been cutting it real loose and talking about stuff like creative's debate over whether or not to use the purple ropes on 205 Live. Honestly it's been real fascinating. Apparently Gallagher wanted to do a gag during Wrestlemania Weekend featuring Charles Wright as Papa Shango trying to break the "curse" the Cruiserweight Title has had on people. That sounds fucking awesome. Apparently it was going to be a .com/YouTube gag but it was decided the budget would've been a little too high. He's telling a lot of real cool stories.

holy shit the crowd chanting "you deserved it" at Charlotte after she got beat down by Becky.

Corny defending the Randy Orton hazing stuff is not surprising in the slightest but enough of a hot take that I still went "what the fuck, Jim" outloud.

From when I looked into it years ago it's not to say that MSG had an empty house before the weekend rush, but there was definitely a bump increase that was different from typical MSG Monday show last minute increases, which is a granted given since it was a special show. Otherwise yes, that history tidbit mostly has to do with closed circuit locations. But even MSG had a faster last minute bump than usual. I woonder if being on a Sunday was a huge factor, as it was only the second Sunday MSG show in awhile--they would tend to fall on Mondays (March 17th, 1985 being an exception as it was a St. Patrick's Day show. Before then, the last Sunday matinee show was March 25th, 1984). MSG crowds were weird sometimes though--The Brawl to End It All (July 23rd, 1984) wasn't a sellout and there's no way that many people decided to just watch MTV or MSG Network that day. And that's a weirdly notable show to not sellout otherwise. There used to be a list somewhere with all of the 1980s MSG shows and their ticket sales and I'm curious just how many of those shows were genuine sellouts and how many weren't.

The first Wrestlemania gained most of its ticket sales the day of and the day before the show, so I imagine there was a lot of scalping going on by the time Sunday rolled around.