WrestlingPower

Outstanding show as usual. A couple other random appearances by Buddy. NWF (I think it was called) did a few TV tapings in 1992 I think that SMW guys were a part of. If memory serves Buck Robley was running and/or booking this group that ran in New Orleans. Buddy did some classic TV promos for there including the "Daddy says sell, Daddy says sell" one that I think has been made famous online. He also showed up in Virginia indies in 1993 as he had supposedly left the business to go into the ministry. A church in Waynesboro, VA hired him as youth minister and he showed up as a surprise on a Doug Ward booked show I was filming at the time. He worked a handful of shows around VA at that time. This was during the era where there were a lot of Ivan Koloff matches against either Jimmy Valiant or Wahoo McDaniel. I'm trying to remember if he ever worked any of the Bert Prentice feds, WOW or Ozark Mountain or Music City. Kris, is there an online source you are using for results in chronological order? Or just personal records you have gathered? To me the strength of these shows is how you break down year-by-year which territory these guys were in. I wish Meltzer's obits did that.

Very fun listen. I wouldn't consider this essential in comparison to the shows with Naylor, Court Bauer, JJ Dillon, and Kris' historical piece, but it was a very good listen as a companion piece. Always enjoy the enthusiasm of Stuttsy.

I loved the year-by-year breakdown. That's usually my main criticism of Dave's obits is how they don't go in chronological order. Also enjoyed Will's marking out over match announcements, "Sold, you got me, take my money".

It still amazes me how so many people that worked for JCP in the 80s and a lot of fans totally buy into the idea that if they hadn't expanded nationally they would still be in business today. Discounting all the changes to TV in that length of time among many other factors. Even if it was possible for someone to have analyzed the books to see how much was being spent "out of their territory", how these guys can sit around bragging about taking the private plane for 90 min road trips and going out & celebrating sell-outs by renting out restaraunts & bars. That kind of stuff just wasn't going to sustain a successful business no matter the size of the territory. JCP theoretically could have lost less money along the way and best case they probably would have delayed the Turner sale. But ultimately things probably would have ended up as they did.

Listening to newest podcast where they talk to David Crockett. Here's one I hadn't heard before, he's trying to blame some of JCP's financial problems on debt they inherited from the buyout of Watts. He says that debt was "the beginning of the end". He doesn't deny they were overspending but in a roundabout way acts like they would have been fine if they didn't buy UWF. He also talks about how he feels Watts & Ross "worked" his brother into buying it. Very interesting so far...

Not sure if this was mentioned elsewhere on the board, but on the History of Wrestling podcast on PTBN they mentioned that Dusty died on Magnum's birthday. Forever linked.

Very sad to hear. One of my childhood heroes.

I'm totally there as far as having time for wrestling too. But I guess I'm just not seeing as widespread discussion of wide breadths of wrestling among the 20-something crowd as we had back in the day. I guess wrestling reaches people differently now as well or people in general are just too busy. I doubt the newer generation is really seeking wrestling just for the sake of diversity of experience like we were. Part of it I think ties into how the Observer & other rallying points have changed over the years. Back then it really seems like the culture was all about seeking out more & more wrestling, now it seems more about the shared experience of discussing what everyone watches.

One unintended take-away I had from this was just how much more "in tune" hardcores were to the indie scene 12-15 years ago than they are now. Back then there were lots of people familiar with and/or semi-regular viewers of ROH, CZW, JAPW, ECWA, USA Pro, IWA Mid-South, etc. People somehow found time to go to the trouble to obtain and watch all this stuff in addition to Japan, Lucha, free TV stuff, it's kind of crazy to think back on. In this current day & age where accessibility is theoretically much easier to products all over the place, the world has changed to where people just don't have time. Social media etc. has taken over to where it seems fans of the "indy" scene watch ROH, PWG, maybe Evolve. Then you have a group of harder cores that follow AAW, AIW, whatever but the drop off from there is huge to anyone following the smaller indies. I think in some ways it is harder for guys to make a name for themselves just because fans aren't viewing & talking about a wide variety of feds like they did back then.

I'm very impressed with Will's patience & restraint on this show in attempting to bridge the generation gap. I appreciate the shout out too!

How's the Rey shoot?

There were so many details to mention so this may have been missed. The post-Bash house show series with Flair/Luger was being pushed on TV as if there was only going to be one rematch and all these cities were bidding on getting the match. Only in the localized promo segments for your town would they say that your town had been chosen so come see Flair/Luger. It helped the draw too with MX/Arn & Tully on those shows. I think that era of excitement also kind of sped along people becoming disenchanted with it. They had the biggest houses in a while and more people to disappoint at once when Luger failed to get the job done. I could sense even as a mark then that by Sept when they started the 2nd run of rematches with special refs that fans were starting to figure out that Flair NEVER won and ALWAYS escaped with the title. This show was also kind of fascinating to compare to the narrative presented in documentaries such as Good Old Days. Most of the narrative you hear about this time period kind of glosses over 1988 with all the talk of the move to Dallas being the last straw & the sale inevitable. They also make it sound like the financial losses were a complete surprise to Crockett when clearly there were issues 6-12 months before the sale that clearly everyone was well aware of. After listening to this it seems like 1988 might have been one of the most newsworthy years of the 80s with all the backstage stuff going on with AWA/World Class and potential other groups looking to buy each other out. Lots of stuff to dig into there that I never knew.

I'm only up into May and I've already learned a TON that I had no idea about only following the business thru the Apter mags at that point. I'm amazed how screwed up the booking & layout of shows was by that point. It's a wonder Dusty lasted in the booker role as long as he did. I imagine the office was so screwed up by that point, finances & whatever that they probably didn't even have time to care about how screwed up everything else was. These shows are providing a wealth of knowledge to me as this was before I would discover the sheets at the tail end of 1988.

I really enjoyed the looseness of the Meltzer episode as well. I was a bit leery of a Flair podcast, but he was really playful, charismatic, and energetic as host. All the interviews I'd heard in the past of Flair on a podcast, he was very dull & monotone so I wasn't sure how this would go. Listening to him with Dave I can totally see how Flair would be "charming" in person as Dave always referred to him. I thought it was funny how Flair was trying to straddle the line at times between trying to be humble and downplaying the praise of him and at other times admitting "yeah I am the greatest, aren't I?". Not sure I would have time to listen to more of these, but I might depending on the guest.

Listening now, so many names from that era of smart fan culture have faded away. I've met Howard Baum, Pete Lederberg, and Jeff Bowdren at conventions in Charlotte over the years. Pete still sets up a table to sell photos, old newsletters, etc. and remembers me after having met once. I'd be curious to see what (if anything) some of the fans from that era kept that could be easily distributed/preserved in this day & age.

I talked to someone last night with first hand knowledge of the Wrestlecon bust from 2013. Apparently it wasn't an "all of a sudden" raid. The WWE officials had apparently walked the convention floor undercover on the Friday, asked questions of vendors to see what items they had, and maybe even made some purchases. Then Saturday they showed up less than 2 hrs after the doors opened, with police with them, and went straight for the tables of the worst offenders.

Did anyone see the shoot Mike Johnson did with Mercer & Lowrance?

I'm curious to hear how this is: http://www.highspots.com/Preorders/develop.html

I laughed at Dylan's note about Austin not needing the $ from the shirts being taken down off PWTees. I think the same thing every time he or Ross heavily plug their Amazon links. Either I support giving pennies to millionaires or I somehow reward them with pennies for having theoretically pissed away millions they once had (which would be the case if this was Hogan or Flair, quite unclear in the cases of these 2).