KrisZ

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BEcvHRoCcAAkWcJ.jpg:large

Sting wasn't as cold as you think these were the shows I have on record right before his matches with Flair Greensboro 11/26/87 = Starrcade 87 closed circuit and Kevin Sullivan vs. Ivan as main event = 6,000 Philadelphia 10/24/87 - Flair/Nikita = 2,500 St. Louis 10/9/87 = Ronnie Garvin/Flair = 2,300

I barely remember the Flair-Hayes angle. Was there more than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90GiUssfOVY That's kind of standard stuff. It's not really memorable like Flair-Morton, or even the Flair-Ronnie out of the Date With Precious (i.e. "Can I watch?"). Or the Horsemen breaking Dusty's hand... and ankle earlier. Sting was in January, and was kind of memorable as the "Party Crasher" as a kid sticking his snotty nose into Horsemen Business. Hayes... felt more pedestrian. I'd actually looked forward to a Birds vs Horsemen feud, but they never did anything with it and by this point Hayes was just kind of sticking around. They did a time limit deal with Flair on TBS where TV time ran out right as Hayes had Flair pinned where in actuality the match went to a draw. Hayes was cutting great promos on all the TV to set it up and we don't have the local promos but Hayes was as hot as anyone in that time span.

These are known challenges from Hayes to Flair and the differences between shows. Now some of these towns didn't have shows a month before or after and if I didn't have the attendance I didn't list it. Hayes held his own here. Miami 12/2/87 = Flair vs. Hayes = 2,000 Baltimore 12/12/87 = Flair vs. Hayes = 4,000 Charlotte 12/25/87 = Flair vs. Hayes Norfolk 12/27/87 = Flair vs. Hayes Charleston, WV 12/27/87 = Flair vs. Hayes Atlanta 12/25/87 = Flair vs. Windham = 8,000 1/1/88 = Flair vs. Hayes = 12,700 2/13/88 = Flair vs. Sting = 13,000 Greensboro 12/12/87 = Flair vs. Sting = 6,000 1/2/88 = Flair vs. Hayes = 12,457 2/20/88 = Super Powers vs. MX in a cage = ? Columbus, OH 1/10/88 = Flair vs. Hayes = 2,300 Richmond 12/26/87 = Flair vs. Windham = 7,000 1/15/88 = Flair vs. Hayes = 6,500 2/19/88 = Ole/Luger vs. Arn/Tully in a cage = 9,000 Philadelphia 12/28/87 = Flair vs. Sting = 6,000 1/16/88 = Flair vs. Hayes = 7,500 2/13/88 = Dusty/LOD vs. Koloff/Powers of Pain = 6,000 St. Louis 12/28/87 = Flair vs. Sting = 4,000 1/19/88 = Flair vs. Hayes in a cage = 5,900 3/6/88 = Flair vs. Sting = 5,700 Inglewood Forum 11/16/87 = Flair/Luger vs. Ronnie Garvin/Dr. Death = 1,500 1/21/88 = Flair vs. Hayes = 3,000

The thing about Jimmy Garvin was fans didn't really want to buy him as a babyface much less a #1 contender....you gotta remember before he was in the feud with Flair he was doing jobs in the low midcard to Brad Armstrong. Hayes had the star power and the angle was really well done with Flair on TV so it worked.

Flair was around in 1984 but not a lot. He only worked 7 Greensboro cards which was about 40-50% of the shows because I don't have complete data. Regarding the decline of JCP....you can't pinpoint one single thing that caused them to go downhill as there was many problems that started to mount up as the year went on. Magnum getting in the car crash was the first major strike as they had to turn Nikita which worked though in a big way as the fans went nuts for him and the argument can definitely be made that he should've beat Flair at Starrcade 86 for the title. Atlanta itself was floundering in 1987 and it had to be embarrassing for the UWF who was just bought out by JCP but not made official yet drew double (8,500 > 4,200) that JCP was drawing. It was the UWF debut and had heavy promotion by Pedicino's TV and they blew JCP out of the water. That was a signal and it didn't help that they returned 3 weeks later with Flair/Jimmy Garvin on top and drew 3,200. Now they did go back up on a month later with Horsemen vs. Freebirds on top which was a HUGE deal locally drawing 7,000 and then hit a home run with GAB & War Games the next month with 15,000 then came back on my 8th birthday drawing 14,100 with Flair/Ronnie on top. The crowds was still looking good on the next show with Dusty/Roadies vs. Arn/Tully/Luger on top drawing 9,000 but the bottom completely fell out the next show with RnR vs. Arn/Tully on top drawing 2,300. The next show was a complete embarassment as they ran Tully vs. Morton as the main event in a lumberjack match drawing 1,800 fans. They sent all their big talent to Detroit which they were trying to conquer from Vince and with Flair/Luger vs. Dusty/Garvin on top they drew only 1,000 fans which was 7,000 less than their debut show the month before which was the Flair/Garvin title change. They continued to sputter towards the end of the year but on Christmas night they drew 8,000 for Flair vs. Windham and the week later on New Years Day they drew 12,700 for Flair vs. Hayes which was again a big deal locally. The next month Flair/Sting drew 13,000 which was a huge number as Sting was really getting hot at the time but the attendance dropped in half for the next show with Ole/Dusty/Luger vs. Arn/Tully/Ric as the main event. It would really get bad in April as Flair/Tully vs. Luger/Sting and Roadies/Powers of Pain in a cage only drew 1,400 but it would pick back up with Doc getting a shot Flair the next month for 7,300. Flair/Luger drew really big in August bringing out 13,700 and then on Thanksgiving night Luger/Sting vs. Roadies drew 8,000 in a rare big draw for a tag match but it was Turkey Day which was tradition and that was the first Turner promoted Omni show. Let's look at Greensboro Flair vs. Nikita on 2/13/87 drew 13,000 which showed that Nikita was very hot as a babyface. Flair/Dusty would come back in April drawing 11,121 but to show a pattern two weeks later Flair/Jimmy Garvin only drew 7,829. RnR vs. Flair/Luger was the main event on 6/21 and it drew 4,500 so we are seeing another pattern developing here. To Jimmy's credit though and maybe to Luger/Nikita the 7/11 show drew 10,532 as Flair fought Jimmy in a cage and Lex beat Nikita for the US title. 8/22 saw Flair face Ronnie and they only drew 6,714 which was showing that Ronnie's drawing power had faded because it was a year earlier they were selling out Greensboro. RnR vs. Arn/Tully then headlined the next show on 9/12 drawing poorly at 3,725 and then the next show on 9/27 saw a double main with Ronnie defending the NWA title against Big Bubba and the Roadies/Super Powers vs. Horsemen only draw 5,117. Ronnie/Flair came back on 10/10 only drawing 3,416 so Ronnie as champ is complete failure. The next show on 10/25 was co-mained by Tully/Flair/Luger vs. Nikita/RnR and Dusty vs. Hiro Matsuda and the woes continued at 3,721. Then came the big debacle of moving Starrcade out of Greensboro/Atlanta and to Chicago which was a bomb and basically killed Greensboro but to Michael Hayes' credit him and Flair drew 12,457 on 1/2 so in a span of two days they drew 25,157 in the two key towns of the promotion. Michael Hayes was a draw at the time no doubt. The next month they came with a cage match with Ole/Dusty/Luger vs. Arn/Tully/Flair and drew another big house in 11,771 so January/February were strong months in the key towns which coming off Starrcade's failure is very interesting. Next show was Clash #1 and it only drew 6,000 which made sense as people could watch the show at home on live TV which was still rare at that time. The next month saw the finals of Crockett Cup 88 and they drew 6,300 so they are having half houses on two very big shows. Doc vs. Flair didn't do so hot in May as they only drew 4,000 and even War Games didn't do too much in July as they only drew 6,632. Dusty/Luger vs. Flair/Al Perez came back in August and only drew 6,000 then came a vital blow to the promotion. Flair/Luger which was a very hot feud main evented on 9/11 and only drew 2,500. Very very telling. The rematch the next month only bumped it up to 4,000 and the next show on 11/26 was the first Turner show in town and with Luger/Sting vs. Roadies they drew 7,500 which was the best number in 9 months. The patterns we see here are Jimmy Garvin wasn't a draw Tag teams in the main event weren't draws Flair being injured and forced to work in teams wasn't a draw Ronnie Garvin as champion wasn't a draw Going to Detroit was a huge blow as they had some success in Chicago but Detroit was brutal after the first show. Michael Hayes was a draw especially in Atlanta & Greensboro. Sting & Luger both were hot when they booked great.

WCW in 1993 was running venues in Georgia that GA indy promotions would run at that same time.....think about that.

People don't want to bring up the dark age of JCP which is post Starrcade 83 to Fall 1984 where the promotion drew some really bad houses in their major cities and JCP was really losing money at the time so enter Dusty Rhodes as booker and he saved the territory. Flair was around but he was touring but even he wasn't drawing as good as he was because after Piper & Valentine split to go along with Steamer's retirement the star power really dropped. If Crockett hadn't brought in Dusty there was no way in hell he would've made the play for TBS.

This thread is going to be revisited soon....I don't know when but I have found some results sources I didn't have then and finding quite a few results that Graham doesn't have in his WWF section. I'm doing a little at a time but it will happen when I get through whether it's this year or whenever.

Raven took Kevin Sullivan's gimmick and brought it into the 90's and did a damn good job with it. Raven & Sullivan matches were alike as well as they worked a mostly hardcore style except Raven was able to do a lot more in ECW than Sullivan could do on TV back in the day. Scott Levy as a person had better work no doubt as Scotty Anthony was one of my favorite gimmicks of the early 90's and Johnny Polo was fantastic as well.

I liked Goldberg as a gimmick and as a worker he was better than Sid but Sid was a phenomenon that you just had to live through in 1989-92. Think about this, it took Sid getting injured for Mark Callous to get a job in the NWA. Sid was a monster that you really didn't see at the time and when he joined the Horsemen he became this cult god especially at the TV tapings and I went to them in bulk back in those days. I voted for Sid.

Logic booking 101.....heels put over faces at the end of a feud. Shield has been over strong like rover so a job is in order.

The documentary part could be very well done and they have old clips of Flair to splice in. They just won't get Dusty though.

Thesz has gotta be #3 right....he was the champion during the national wrestling boom in the 1950's.

It's the celebrity wing it doesn't matter.

I mean if you think he was off base and the pic that they used on Friday was the nude Rousey pic from ESPN The Magazine.

I think only Solie, Taz, & me are the ones that actually call it a front chancery.

And if you don't think Rios is offbase in how Rousey is being promoted....look at the pic they used on the WON front page.

http://deadspin.com/5986103/?utm_campaign=...dium=socialflow

Yeah reading it in context yeah you are right and that kinda makes it worse. Internet trolls are not angry bigots from 1973-74.

He was basically agreeing with her comparing her plight to Hank Aaron's as he was breaking Babe Ruth's homerun record.

Dave talking about Rousey made me nauseous

Yeah Swagger is a fuckin moron although they could say that angle wise this was a trap.

Here here.....Dylan you will be surprised by the Brody commentary

Alvarez posted on Twitter that he was interviewed by NBC today about Swagger......so they are succeeding in getting press.