NWA and WWF cable and syndication

[Loss]

One thing I've seen pop up from time to time is that so many people never saw the NWA in the 1980s, but watched the WWF. I don't mean they were selectively choosing not to watch the NWA in most cases. It's usually more that people say they didn't have access to it.

 

I feel like I need explanation on this. Even if there was no syndication, wouldn't TBS be in every household with cable? And I realize not everyone had cable then, but I don't hear people saying the same thing about Prime Time Wrestling or TNT, which were on the USA Network. Was USA available through more cable companies than TBS in the early days?

 

It's just something I want to understand, because I think it's interesting. The WWF's syndication was excellent and probably a big key to their success, so that's a topic worth exploring too -- the tactics Vince used to ensure that the WWF was available in just about every market while for whatever reason, JCP couldn't break through. I believe promoters had to buy time back then, so that may be all there is to it. Crockett's mindset behind purchasing the UWF was I believe entirely to expand his syndication to all of these new markets. But the company was not at all prepared to expand, which is a shame. There were some booking problems for sure, but I wonder if the bigger problem with JCP was that the promotion itself was pretty mismanaged.

[thebrainfollower]

Both were readily available in my neck of the woods if you had cable. I remember being psyched to watch all sorts of different wrestling when we finally got cable in the summer of 1993. I had a friend who'd been watching NWA since about 89 or so and regularly extolled its virtues but I never got to watch it. Part of it may have been the time slot being bad for kids. Whose parents want to let their kids invite friends over and watch TV on a Saturday night? You're usually out doing something. Whereas Superstars and Challenge would be on early afternoon and usually my parents wouldn't watch TV. They were of the generation that watched TV only after dinner at night and so WCW proved a problem to get them to let me watch the WWF never did.

 

I knew about Prime Time, but never actually saw a first run episode either.

[Al]

I didn't start watching until 1990. I have the impression though that WWE's home video market was far more expansive and organized than WCW/NWA's.

[Bigelow34]

I grew up as a WWF fan in the Northeast for a few reasons...started watching in 1990

 

1) It was what my dad, brother and cousin watched so I followed suit

2) They were always coming through Providence, so I got to watch them live

3) When you heard about "wrestling" during that point it was always WWF...whether it was at school or in the mainstream

 

We had TBS, so starting in 1992, I stumbled into and would begin to watch Saturday Night regularly and between that and PWI mags, I had a good knowledge of WCW. I didn't really start seeing their PPVs until 1995 or so, when my friend's dad obtained the wonderful black box. WWF PPVs I was in on starting with WM8. For a couple of years though, my Dad always told me WWF was better so like any 11 year old son trying hang with his father, I bought into it.

 

Also, around here, video stores mainly had WWF tapes so it was easier for me to catch up on old WWF than NWA. Plus my brother had like every WWF Magazine from 1985-1990, so I devoured those and caught myself up. I didn't really have those avenues to catch up on old NWA outside of PWI for quite a while.

[Matt D]

In elementary school, in 90, kids only cared about WWF. I had one friend who was the son of a friend of my mother's and that's who I got into WCW from. I think there was a good span of 6 months when I was only watching WWF and not watching WCW too. It was also a case that WWF ran the Boston Garden and WCW didn't run anywhere near me, really.

 

The most important thing was this, though: Superstars came on at 12. Wrestling challenge came on at 1.

 

When you're a kid in the 80s-early 90s, Saturday morning cartoons is a weekly routine. That was when you got your new cartoons for the week. Once noon hit, however, they were over and there was nothing else. Wrestling filled that gap so naturally.

 

None of this answers the op though. My question on that is this: in the 80s, what percentage of everyone had cable?

[Bigelow34]

Hmmm...I remember having cable by the mid-80s I think. And I recall having both USA and TBS for sure. I know I was watching All American around 1989 and PTW as early as 1990 and I know we had TBS because my dad watched Andy Griffith all the time...plus we would regularly watch Braves games at night.

[khawk20]

In our market, there is/was a monopoly in place for the TV (Unofficially, you understand, but obvious) that prevented us from getting TBS on regualr cable, when the smaller (like, 10 times smaller) towns within an hour of us were able to get it. It was quite maddening.

 

I don't know if this sort of thing might have been a problem in other parts of Canada, or if it was exclusively a quirk to our market. Not sure if anything existed like that in the U.S. or not either. We're a weird city for exclusivity in certain areas ($$$$ + grease + palm = exclusive contracts, I suppose...)

 

Once I got the big C-band dish in late 85-early 86 there was little I couldn't get, wrestling-wise. Prior to that the NWA was only something I could read about.

[Busterira]

Here in Chicago we were lucky enough to get cable around 1980. My first recollection of watching wresting was Ga on TBS around 81-82. Me and my little brother would watch TBS every Sat for years. We were very confused when Black Saturday happened but we still watched. We didn't watch much WWF up until that point but then we started watching whatever WWF was on the WOR channel out of New York. Eventually by 1985 I watched a lot of WWF. The other promotion we watched was the AWA which was on every Sun morn at 10 am followed by an hour of Bob Luce which would show those old clips from the International Amphitheater.

 

I dont remember World Wide or Mid Atlantic shows popping up here till 85 or so. I don't know if they were on and we didn't watch them or if they just popped up with the huge expansion of televised wrestling by 85-86. Every Week, I would watch NWA,WWF, UWF, World Class and a little AWA. 1986 World Class sucked but they would have their weekly show, then an hour of older footage from 82-85. This wasn't the Legends show that were on ESPN a couple of years later. I think they were just reruns of the older shows from what I can remember. I had only heard and read about the Freebirds-Von Erich feud so this was a great way to catch up and see what actually happened.

 

I would keep up with the goings on of the other territories by getting the Apter magazines. For example in Chicago we never got Memphis. The first Memphis match I ever saw was the Lawler-Idol cage match in 1987 on the Pro Wresting this Week show and was blown away. To this day its one of my favorite wrestling matches ever.

 

I would have to say I was (and even more so today) a bigger NWA fan then the WWF but my favorite wrestling show and promotion back then was Mid-South/ UWF.

[Dooley]

Growing up outside of Toronto in the 80's, we were exposed to the full WWF syndication package. Challenge, Superstars, Maple Leaf Wrestling (which was Superstars with extra Cancon and hosted by Billy Red Lyons) and "WWF Cavalcade", which was Challenge with the extra Cancon. The only exposure to NWA was on those "free preview" weekends for the pay TV tier, which included TBS.

[Bigelow34]

Busterira also reminded me of the ESPN shows. I definitely remember watching WCCW on there during afternoons and then watched Global weekly in the early 90s for as long as that was on.

[JerryvonKramer]

I am interested in this topic. Reading the WONs through 86, 87 and 88 and into 89, it seems to me that JCP's financial position was not in dire straights, it wasn't like they were on their last legs and going bankrupt. The same, indeed, is true of Bill Watts's UWF. Sure, it was a struggle, but I don't get the impression either promotion was about to go bust. David Crockett is against the Turner takeover pretty much every step of the way, and it seems as if he'd have been able to sway his brother, JCP might have continued into the 90s. It's not impossible. I also think Watts might have survived beyond 87.

 

This happens in the business world all the time: companies tend to buy companies who are either doing okay or are on the up. I'm not saying that UWF or JCP were necessarily "on the up", but I do think it's possible to exagerrate the extent of their financial losses. Crockett seemed to be turning over some pretty decent gates, viewing figures and even PPV revenue in 88 (pre-Turner). Yes, Dusty's booking meant that he killed some towns and there was a slight drop off in gates, but it wasn't a doomsday scenario and certainly nowhere near as bad as 1992 WCW figures.

 

That's one thing I think it's worth dwelling on, because conventional wisdom says that Crockett was a busted flush in 88. I question that.

 

The other thing I want to bring up is this old thread I made on another board back in 2009: http://officialfan.proboards.com/index.cgi...p;thread=262216

 

We can't overlook the fact that Vince was in New York and JCP were down in Greensboro or Atlanta. You can be Ted Turner or Coca Cola:Atlanta isn't NYC. That has to play a part. It doesn't answer why people were watching USA Network and not TBS, but it might be able to answer how many channels Vince was able to carry WWF programming on Syndication.

 

Crockett had 3 big shows: the old Mid-Atlantic show (later NWA Pro Wrestling and after that WCW Pro), World Championship Wrestling (later Saturday Night) and Worldwide. After the Turner deal they added Power Hour which was pushed as a semi-A show. My understanding is that of those four only TWO were in syndication (the old Mid-Atlantic show and Worldwide), and the other two were exclusive to TBS. Does anyone know how many markets the syndicated shows ran in?

 

My guess would be that it would be far fewer than Vince's syndicated shows.

[Ricky Jackson]

As I've mentioned in the past, I grew up in Calgary in the 80s and didn't have access to JCP on TV. I'm told it was sometimes featured on Pro Wrestling Plus, but I don't remember it being on any of the episodes I watched at the time, but then again we are talking about 25 + year old memories here. Wrestling on TV in Calgary in the 80s was 1hr of Stampede followed by 1hr of WWF on Saturday afternoons after the cartoons on Ch.7. AWA was on TSN, but was constantly shifted around in different time slots and different days, which made it hard to follow. I collected the mags and knew all about JCP and all the major stars and angles but frustratingly could never see the shows. There were a few tapes out there (Lords of Ring or whatever the PWI tape with the Piper/Valentine dog collar match on it was called, and the 85 Bash being two I remember) but not much else. It wasn't until 92/93 that I was able to watch WCW on TV consistently and the tape selection got (relatively) better. Scoring a copy of Bash 89 for $5 from the bargin bin of a local video store when I was 15 or 16 is still a fond memory.

[Ditch]

I grew up in a semi-rural exurb. The cable company line ended like one house down the road and we couldn't get cable until 1994.

[BrickHithouse]

The only time I had free access to the TV was Saturday morning, and that's when Superstars was on. I was aware of the NWA but could only catch a match here or there on Sat/Sunday evenings when the parents weren't in command of the TV. Watching a full hour of TBS wrestling was my unattainable holy grail.

 

The only NWA stuff any video store around here in the 80's had was PWI Ringmasters and 1985 GAB. It wasn't until the early 90's that Blockbusters popped up with NWA/WCW tapes and I rented every single one they had in order to get caught up on stuff that happened from 85-90.

[goodhelmet]

I started watching Georgia Wrestling in Illinois when I was about 6-7 years old. My sisters grew up in South Carolina so they were able to explain who Tommy Rich, Tony Atlas and those guys were. This was when we had about 12 stations total.

 

 

When we got our first cable box, I think I was exposed to both WWF and Crockett about the same time. It was easier to pick up on Crockett because i recognized many faces from Georgia. We now lived in Texas so I was also exposed to World Class as well. Then rock n wrestlng blew up and we watched WWF religiously. When Pro and Worldwide blew up, we watched those religiously as well. Then the UWF blew up and it was possible I could watch wrestling from noon to midnight with maybe an hour or two break total on some Saturdays. I remember AWA popping up on ESPN in 1986 but I hated Buddy Rose and would change the channel when he was on. I hated Greg Gagne and thought he was a joke as well. California wrestling with Toru Tanaka also popped up every once in awhile but it sucked.

 

 

I don't know how people could have seen one company without knowing the others existed if you had a cable box because in San Antonio, we were spoiled beyond belief and we were not considered a major wrestling town at all.

 

 

Also, Jerry... In 1987, the UWF was as good as dead. They could not have survived.

[Moonsault Marvin]

I started watching wrestling in late '88 and lived in a rural area without cable. WWF had the advantage of always coming on at the same time on Saturday. NWA was hard to follow, since it never came on in the same time slot each week. I would have to look through the TV Guide listings each week to see when it was going to come on. It could range from Sunday at noon to 10:30 at night, and some weeks it wouldn't come on at all.

[JerryvonKramer]

Also, Jerry... In 1987, the UWF was as good as dead. They could not have survived.

How about Crockett in 88?

[Loss]

Put it this way: they would have sold to Turner months earlier if they could have reached an easier agreement with TBS on who was responsible for their debts. A big chunk of that was the purchase of the UWF.

[JerryvonKramer]

Put it this way: they would have sold to Turner months earlier if they could have reached an easier agreement with TBS on who was responsible for their debts. A big chunk of that was the purchase of the UWF.

From what I read in Meltzer, Crockett still owed Watts something like $2million. GAB '89 did pretty good and made about £3million on PPV. Starrcade did the same, so that's $6million coming in from PPV alone. The Crockett Cup drew reasonably well. The Bash tour drew pretty well. Bunkhouse Stampede not so well. The Clash shows were getting around a 1.8 to 2.0 rating the third highest rated show on TBS behind The Gator Bowl (and another "Bowl"), the WWF were only getting 2.2 themselves at this time.

 

As a VERY conservative estimate, let's say JCP made somewhere in the region of $12million revenue in 88. What were the total costs?

 

I'm not saying they were doing amazingly well, I'm just saying that the debt to Watts was hardly going to put them out of business, especially when they could just offer him a job at any time.

[Matt D]

Crockett should have never bought that damn airplane!

[Ricky Jackson]

It was much more than the UWF purchase. Basically a bunch of frivolous spending--private jets, an office in Dallas, and all kinds of comps and big money being tossed around for a long time--that finally caught up with Crockett despite any financial success. Meltzer always tells the story of Crockett's lawyer or accountant informing him just after Bash 88 that he was essentially bankrupt.

[Loss]

He was also behind on paying everyone. It wasn't going to last.

[JerryvonKramer]

So in short, they might have squeaked into 89 or even 90 but the writing was on the wall for JCP.

 

What interests me now is: what on earth was David Crockett saying in those meetings that was holding things up? The saga goes on for months and David is a constant barrier to the deal taking place.

[Death From Above]

I don't recall WCW being available in this region of Canada pre-Nitro, although I am told it indeed was. But again I didn't have cable in those days.

 

WWF Superstars was a Saturday morning broadcast on I think ITV, which has since become Global. Non-cable channel here. They also did Raw Saturday afternoons when that became the real show. They had a Disney thing on in the afternoons before it and I remember the days of watching Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, and Raw back to back to back. That's some TV for you right there.

 

I never saw a Nitro until Sting was doing his Silent Man thing, I think. Although my WCW timeline may be slightly askew.

[Steve Gennarelli]

I grew up in Binghamton NY. The WWWF had been on in our small market from Channel 9

in NY and we had wrestling on HBO in the mid 70's. In the late 70's, our local ABC affiliate would run Vince's

show after the end of "American Bandstand" at 1:30pm on a Saturday.

USA Network started running the WWF from MSG or Landover around '79 or '80.

We didn't get TBS on cable until '86 or '87..so the WWF was considered "Major League" in NY,

even in small Upstate towns. NWA was more for the hardcore audiences, but seemed minor league to the more casual fans who liked Production Values and were used to Vince's slick programs.

Watts UWF show was a lot more impressive, IMO than any of the NWA Shows. Watts' shows were just filled with non stop action from beginning to end.