Where the Big Boys Play #43

[JerryvonKramer]

Or "The David Crockett Appreciation Show"

 

Where the Big Boys Play #43 – 80s TV Special Part 1

 

 

Chad and Parv briefly talk about the new PlacetoBeNation.com website, Chikara and US day-time TV soaps before tackling 16 of the hottest matches to air on tv from Jim Crockett

 

Promotions between 1983 and 1987:

 

1. World Title: Ric Flair vs Harley Race © (Mid-Atlantic 8/17/83) – Greensboro, NC [?]

2. TV Title: Tully Blanchard © vs Don Kernodle (Worldwide 05/11/85) – Blackwood, NJ

3. World Tag Titles: Rock & Roll Express vs Ivan Koloff & Krusher Kruschev © (Worldwide 07/09/85) – Shelby, NC

4. World Title: Ric Flair © vs Nikita Koloff (WCW Sunday Edition 08/11/85) – Atlanta, GA

5. Ric Flair, Arn and Ole Anderson vs Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA and Manny Fernandez (Worldwide 12/21/85) – Greensboro, NC

6. World Title: Ric Flair © vs Ron Garvin (WCW 12/28/85) – Atlanta, GA

7. Ole Anderson vs Magnum TA (WCW 12/28/85) – Atlanta, GA

8. Ric Flair and Arn Anderson vs Ron Garvin and Dusty Rhodes (Worldwide 12/28/85) – Greensboro, NC

9. National Title: Tully Blanchard © vs Ron Garvin (Worldwide 05/03/86) – Greensboro, NC

10. World Title: Ric Flair © vs Ricky Morton (NWA Pro 05/17/86) Atlanta, GA

11. World Tag Titles: Rock & Roll Express © vs Rick Rude & Manny Fernandez (WCW 12/86) – Atlanta, GA

12. Ric Flair vs Barry Windham (Worldwide 01/24/87) – Fayetteville, NC

13. Midnight Express vs Barry Windham & Ron Garvin (WCW 05/16/87) – Charlotte, NC

14. Ric Flair & Lex Luger vs Ron & Jimmy Garvin (WCW 6/27/87) – Atlanta, GA

15. Rock & Roll Express vs. Arn and Tully (WCW 9/19/87) – Raleigh, NC

16. Ric Flair vs Ron Garvin (Cage match) (Worldwide 9/26/87) – Detroit, MI

[Loss]

This links to the Starrcade '89 show.

[JerryvonKramer]

Try it now (always do that, lol).

[Loss]

It's working, thanks.

[Loss]

Listening to the show now. Just to throw this out, until the 90s, most of the big angles and marquee matches were on the syndicated shows, because most households didn't have cable.

[soup23]

Loss, I'm guessing you were based in Arkansas at this point, were you able to get TBS by antenna or was that exclusive to cable? That is always something that confuses me.

[Loss]

Loss, I'm guessing you were based in Arkansas at this point, were you able to get TBS by antenna or was that exclusive to cable? That is always something that confuses me.

TBS was exclusive to cable for me. Most households had cable available from my understanding, but considering that wrestling tends to have a lower income audience and paying a cable bill may not have been a priority, I can see the promotions being hesitant to put all the big stuff on cable for a long time.

[kingliam]

So I'm assuming I'll need to leave this one alone for the time being due to CHIKARA spoilers?

 

Trying to catch up on the events, but not seen the most recent one yet.

[soup23]

Only specifics is that we talk about what happens in the final match and speculate about what is to come for the promotion. You can skip ahead to around 19 minutes to skip any Chikara talk plus you will get our awesome soap opera analysis.

[kingliam]

Without wanting to hijack your thread, for someone who has a cursory interest in CHIKARA, was the ending/event as a whole that amazing?

 

Facebook/EWB (other forum I go to) seem to be full of buzz about it, but just curious.

[soup23]

I thought it was an interesting ending to an ippv that will only be enhanced/hindered by what the true result of the show was.

 

If it was a big work and angle to create interest, then it seems kind of stupid to throw away potential revenue on future events for what they were trying to accomplish here.

 

If it was the last show under the "Chikara" moniker, I think it was a pretty brilliant way to go out and even though we havent had any huge promotions shut down since the Sopranos finale, I am surprised the concept has not been lifted more.

[Loss]

I should have told you guys to bypass Flair vs Nikita. When I made the first wave of recommendations, they were more to balance out historical significance and good matches. It's not a match I love either, it's more that I think it's the best of the Flair/Nikita feud. Starrcade '86 is a match I don't like at all, so I do like this one better.

[Loss]

Jerry's raving over Flair/Garvin in '85 is incredibly entertaining. I love it!

[Loss]

Interesting deconstruction of Tully vs Garvin. I've never actually seen that match, but I'd be willing to hear some of the responses to that from those who have loved this one so much.

[Loss]

The correct MX vs Windham/Garvin match took place on TBS in the Techwood Drive studios. Soup was right.

[JerryvonKramer]

Jerry's raving over Flair/Garvin in '85 is incredibly entertaining. I love it!

Ha ha, I couldn't love that match more.

[shoe]

Just started listening. Soup is your mom watching online the new relaunch of AMC?

[shoe]

A really strong show guys. The soccer cage story was so awesome.

[shoe]

These are my star ratings for the matches. I haven't rewatched these. The ratings are just from my notes

.1. World Title: Ric Flair vs Harley Race © (Mid-Atlantic 8/17/83) – Greensboro, NC [?] 4*

2. TV Title: Tully Blanchard © vs Don Kernodle (Worldwide 05/11/85) – Blackwood, NJ 3 1/2 *

3. World Tag Titles: Rock & Roll Express vs Ivan Koloff & Krusher Kruschev © (Worldwide 07/09/85) – Shelby, NC 4 1/4*

4. World Title: Ric Flair © vs Nikita Koloff (WCW Sunday Edition 08/11/85) – Atlanta, GA 3 1/4*

5. Ric Flair, Arn and Ole Anderson vs Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA and Manny Fernandez (Worldwide 12/21/85) – Greensboro, NC 3 3/4 *

6. World Title: Ric Flair © vs Ron Garvin (WCW 12/28/85) – Atlanta, GA 4 1/2*

7. Ole Anderson vs Magnum TA (WCW 12/28/85) – Atlanta, GA 3 3/4 *

8. Ric Flair and Arn Anderson vs Ron Garvin and Dusty Rhodes (Worldwide 12/28/85) – Greensboro, NC not seen

9. National Title: Tully Blanchard © vs Ron Garvin (Worldwide 05/03/86) – Greensboro, NC 4*

10. World Title: Ric Flair © vs Ricky Morton (NWA Pro 05/17/86) Atlanta, GA 3 1/2*

11. World Tag Titles: Rock & Roll Express © vs Rick Rude & Manny Fernandez (WCW 12/86) – Atlanta, GA 4 1/2*

12. Ric Flair vs Barry Windham (Worldwide 01/24/87) – Fayetteville, NC 4 3/4 *

13. Midnight Express vs Barry Windham & Ron Garvin (WCW 05/16/87) – Charlotte, NC 4*

14. Ric Flair & Lex Luger vs Ron & Jimmy Garvin (WCW 6/27/87) – Atlanta, GA 2 1/2 *

15. Rock & Roll Express vs. Arn and Tully (WCW 9/19/87) – Raleigh, NC 3 1/2 *

16. Ric Flair vs Ron Garvin (Cage match) (Worldwide 9/26/87) – Detroit, MI 4 1/2 *

[BrickHithouse]

Awesome show. Have had the electricity flicking on and off all day and am only about an hour in so far, 10 minutes at a time.

 

Agree with chad, the RnR's vs Russians would be a Top 10 Crockett match for me easily, maybe higher but it's so hard to nail down a Top 10 with the abundance of top-of-the-line Crockett matches.

 

As far as the affiliate deal in KS - Wichita has affiliates for the four major networks (Fox came along in 1988), and the Wichita stations cover all of KS, far eastern Colorado, southwest Nebraska, and northern Oklahoma, except for northeast KS (which is Topeka and KC). Wichita technically is the largest city in the state if we pretend KC is two different cities. I view KC as one city and a Missouri city, myself.

 

I imagine Topeka has its own set of affiliates, but they cover nothing close to the amount of ground the Wichita stations cover.

 

We always had WWF shows in syndication - Starting in 1985 with CBS for a long time, then they bounced to NBC and eventually FOX before disappearing in early 1993.

 

Aside from TBS, Crockett was syndicated here in 87 thru early 88, then disappeared until 1991. Crockett/NWA syndie stuff was very hard to track down - they bounced around NBC, CBS, and ABC, never FOX. They were never on the same station for any length of time and always had oddball start times - 2am on Sundays or 5am Friday, 11pm Sunday.

 

Digging the show so far.

[soup23]

Thank you Loss, Shoe, and Brickhithouse for all the feedback.

 

Shoe, My mom is definitely on board with the relaunch. I had never really thought about this until this weekend, but I think my passion for wrestling in some ways comes from my mom's personality. I had always assumeed that it was from my dad because his grandfather was the one going to the Cobb County Civic Center all the time.

 

Also, you need to check out that Rhodes/Garvin vs. Arn/Flair match. One of the more satisfying Crockett matches I have seen and I swear I have watched Dusty jumping around and hugging Ron around 20 times thiis past weekend.

 

Brick, Thanks for the heads up on the syndication structure in Kansas. I really feel out of place discussing that because I know a. I was too young for it to really affect me and b. where I lived was weird anyway because TBS could be picked up without having cable.

[Bigelow34]

I could listen to Chad explain sarcophagus matches to Parv all day long.

[Loss]

This show motivated me to watch the Garvin title win for the first time in ages. I am very, very tempted to give it the full five stars. It's an incredible match actually and I think I ended up so emotionally invested in it that I need to distance myself a little bit from it before I can actually talk about it and say anything worthwhile. But what an incredible showing from both guys. It's hard to ask for more from pro wrestling than that.

[Tim Cooke]

Jerry's criticism of Tully is very valid, especially in the Garvin match. I need to watch it again because I still come out of that match thinking it is the best TV match of 1986 but its still a reasonable critique.

[soup23]

I came into this show giving a little bit of a chance for Tully to be my #1 overall NWA/WCW worker for the 80's if the matches he was in really excelled. I came out of these tv matches not sure if he will make my top 3.

 

Also glad you liked that Garvin cage win as much as we did Loss. I was deliberating back and forth over giving it the fully five myself and will probably watch again before I construct our best matches list.