Should have stayed in the NWA

[Lust Hogan]

Mean Mark Callous is my choice for greatest benefit from the jump. Goes from 3rd wheel of The Skyscrapers to the best gimmick WWF ever made in The Undertaker with an undefeated Wrestlemania streak.

[thebrainfollower]

I assumed the 80's because otherwise yeah you are down to pretty much Ron Simmons as guys who maybe should not have jumped.

[El-P]

Bushwhackers probably had their lives extended by the switch, but not their careers if that makes any sense. They made money in merch as well they never would have seen as the Sheepherders in the NWA.

Luke was 42 and Butch 45 when they jumped to WWF. Their careers was behind them already. They made a great move by jumping to WWF and becoming the Bushwhackers.

[MikeCampbell]

I think Tully and Arn were smart to jump when they did. They got to work with some fresh teams, like the Harts and Rockers, and had a money angle to return a year later. If only Tully had fucked it up.

[Marty]

Did anyone actually benefit from jumping to the WWF? Steamboat maybe? Flair? Dusty from what folks have said.

Ted DiBiase.

 

I'll also toss in another name in the "should have stayed" category: One Man Gang. Did he get the most out of his WWF run that he could've?

[pantherwagner]

Yeah it's weird to see Arn mentioned. Tully I understand because he fucked up, but I don't think Arn's career would have been any different if he had not jumped. And probably it benefited him in the long run because if you ask your average "smart fan" (not sure if that makes sense, but I just mean the normal WWF/WWE/NWA/WCW superfans who have been watching forever but are not the kind of people that post on this board) to mention five classic Arn matches pretty sure the Rockers match from SNME is going to be one of them.

[JerryvonKramer]

Did anyone actually benefit from jumping to the WWF? Steamboat maybe? Flair? Dusty from what folks have said.

Ted DiBiase.

 

I'll also toss in another name in the "should have stayed" category: One Man Gang. Did he get the most out of his WWF run that he could've?

 

Mid-South / UWF was not part of the NWA and technically neither of these guys "jumped". They just joined WWF instead of JCP.

 

We've talked about the prospect of Ted in JCP in 87 before on this board and he would have been in the world title picture and him being in the Four Horsemen is a common fantasy booking scenario. I've argued hard before that there was pretty much no way DiBiase was turning down a move to New York with Million Dollar Man gimmick, but it's hard to say what his career would have been like had he been in Crockett rather than WWF 87-93.

 

He probably would have made far fewer appearances in video games and on RAW in his post-retirement. But it's impossible to say because who knows what a Flair vs. DiBiase feud at that stage might have looked like.

 

I don't know about One Man Gang so much ... from UWF champ to Akeem? Hard to say what JCP would have done with him.

[pantherwagner]

I think that in the current WWE it's a very underrated "skill" (not sure how to call it) for NWA guys to have some kind of WWF mythology legendary matches/feuds/gimmick. Steamboat has got Wrestlemania III, Dusty has got the polka dots, Arn has got the SNME match vs Rockers.

 

Barry Windham, on the other hand, is just a dude that is on the WWE HOF because Ole Anderson is an insufferable douchebag that nobody likes. Nobody remembers Magnum T.A. I'm pretty sure that with a WWF run, as shitty as it may have been, Bobby Eaton would be a super respected agent nowadays. Probably Ricky Morton too. I'm sure there are more cases like that. Those names are all pretty worthless on the WWE Universe, much further down the legends chain than Tito Santana or Chavo Guerrero, just to mention two random names.

[JerryvonKramer]

Yeah you are right panther, they need their "postcard moment". I'm not sure if Arn's isn't the Summerslam 89 match though vs. Hart Foundation.

[pantherwagner]

It could be. I don't know because my mindset is pretty much removed from the WWE superfan mindset, but I believe the SNME match has gotten a lot more play on Comps/DVD's/Classics on Demand.

[vicious&delicious]

How about the Road Warriors? When I was a kid I remember thinking that either of them could be NWA champ if they weren't so focused on tag team gold.

 

Their aura went shortly after they stepped foot in a WWE ring.

 

My two lasting memories of the Legion of Doom are Rocko and Sunny flashing the crowd as their manager.

[goc]

Barry Windham, on the other hand, is just a dude that is on the WWE HOF because Ole Anderson is an insufferable douchebag that nobody likes. Nobody remembers Magnum T.A. I'm pretty sure that with a WWF run, as shitty as it may have been, Bobby Eaton would be a super respected agent nowadays. Probably Ricky Morton too. I'm sure there are more cases like that. Those names are all pretty worthless on the WWE Universe, much further down the legends chain than Tito Santana or Chavo Guerrero, just to mention two random names.

They did hire Eaton as a trainer for what I think was still OVW at the time, but it was short lived because he apparently couldn't really teach it to someone else. Barry also had a very short run as a road agent. Not sure why Ricky Morton has never had a chance as a trainer or anything. They hired Dennis Condrey as a trainer in 2010 but I don't know if he's still there.

[JerryvonKramer]

How about the Road Warriors? When I was a kid I remember thinking that either of them could be NWA champ if they weren't so focused on tag team gold.

 

Their aura went shortly after they stepped foot in a WWE ring.

 

My two lasting memories of the Legion of Doom are Rocko and Sunny flashing the crowd as their manager.

Don't know who else would agree with me but I feel like their aura had already gone by 1990 -- possibly even earlier. Road Warriors have felt very tired on all the 89 shows. I'd probably back date it to the heel run in 88. After they turned back face, they just feel like they were coasting and had nothing of note to do at all. A far cry from their hey day. The peak is 86-87. You might point to Starrcade 87 as the cut off . Sure, they were still cheered in 88-90, but it wasn't the same.

 

I think the move to WWF was actually a shot in the arm for them and probably added a few years onto their careers as big names. They got over big in Europe too during their WWF run and were used to headline European shows. They probably shifted a shit-ton of merch as well. They were in no man's land in NWA.

[BrickHithouse]

I think they would have been better served to remain vicious heels thru 1989 - who knows, maybe longer. As faces they'd more than run their course by early '88. Not helped of course by the Starrcade 87 booking.

[vannaboy]

I think they would have been better served to remain vicious heels thru 1989 - who knows, maybe longer. As faces they'd more than run their course by early '88. Not helped of course by the Starrcade 87 booking.

When is the heel turn? Ive got most of the super shows from 85- 95 but haven't seen it.

[BrickHithouse]

October 22, 1988 edition of NWA Pro. Sting/Roadies vs Sullivan/Rotunda/Steiner.

 

Roadies turn on Sting.

 

One of seemingly 2 dozen turns in NWA 1988.

[vannaboy]

October 22, 1988 edition of NWA Pro. Sting/Roadies vs Sullivan/Rotunda/Steiner.

 

Roadies turn on Sting.

 

One of seemingly 2 dozen turns in NWA 1988.

Damn ill have to look for that one

[jdw]

Windham did make much progress in WWF, but was cut short due to family issues. However, with Quake getting a monster push in 90, Perfect getting a run as IC Champion, Rude being brought to the Title forefront, I wonder what was left for Widowmaker Windham in 1990. Possibly a feud with a mid-carder like Boss Man, Duggan or Von Erich.

He wasn't making any progress. His matches around the horn were with Roma, Koko and Tim Horner. I know there are legends of stories about him eventually bring programed with Hogan in 1989 at some point, but if they did, they gave up on it even before Barry left. Hennig's "Hogan, YOU can't do that" taped promos on Hogan started airing no later than 10/08/89, which was to set up Hogan's next major program after the Savage one. Barry was working in the WWF the taping the week before that, and worked that same weekend. He started getting subbed for the following week.

 

There also was talk that Barry had surgery as well for a tumor. If the story now is that he left for family rather than work a main event program around the horn with Hogan... well, his family would have told him to stay and work the program to make loads of money. Since he was back in WCW by April 1990... yeah... major grain of salt that he walked out on a major push in the WWF.

[jdw]

Luger, Windham, Arn & Tully, The Steiners never really fit in WWF.

 

That guy Terry Taylor would probably have been better off staying with Crockett too...

Dusty didn't like Taylor going back for years. We need to remember that Taylor when to World Class before going to the WWF: that's how badly he was run out of JCP.

 

The other guys... I generally agree. I thought Arn & Tully did fine since they weren't getting paid what they were owed by Crockett. They ended up doing okay in the WWF. I feel for Tully since a bad test for what everyone in WCW was doing or had done a good number of times was a bad break to eat. Also, if Arn & Tully had just hung on for a few more months, they would have been there when Turner bought out JCP. They would have settled the ballon payments, probably similar to the MX and Cornette. The Horsemen would have stuck together, Dusty would have gotten axed... would have been interesting.

 

For the Steiners, Watts wanted to give them to take a big pay cut. Just a bad time to stick around. The WWF didn't know what to do with them, but in a sense they had already peaked.

[jdw]

Steamboat was already pushing near 40 at the time and completely misread what he thought would be cool. Steamboat the ninja karate master was cool. Steamboat as Gene Simmons fire breather is cool. Steamboat as a cartoon character with a bad outfit was not cool.

I thought the Dragon outfit and the fire breathing was a lot cooler than Steamboat the karate kid. That being said, the jump back to WWF in 91 was totally ill-advised.

 

The execution of the return to the WWF (i.e. the Dragon nonsense) was ill-advised. But the return itself wasn't. He hadn't worked in 1990. He only worked Feb through Jul in 1989 for WCW. Before that, he hadn't worked since Mar 1988 for the WWF at Mania. Before that he had worked very sporadically since taking off for his son's birth. The amount of matches he worked from say June 1987 through March 1991 were pretty small considering it was nearly 4 years. Now it's possible that Ricky was really good with his money, and his Gold's Gyms had been doing great~! But considering he he didn't stopped working roughly from March 1991 through August 1994 when his back went out, one gets the sense that there was some need for an income again. I wonder if he had one of those Lloyd's deals like Rude and others did.

[MikeCampbell]

If the story now is that he left for family rather than work a main event program around the horn with Hogan... well, his family would have told him to stay and work the program to make loads of money.

According to Barry, he left when Jack and Kendall got busted because the feds were trying to tie him into the operation too. Barry convinced Vince to release him to save the company face.

[pantherwagner]

Barry Windham, on the other hand, is just a dude that is on the WWE HOF because Ole Anderson is an insufferable douchebag that nobody likes. Nobody remembers Magnum T.A. I'm pretty sure that with a WWF run, as shitty as it may have been, Bobby Eaton would be a super respected agent nowadays. Probably Ricky Morton too. I'm sure there are more cases like that. Those names are all pretty worthless on the WWE Universe, much further down the legends chain than Tito Santana or Chavo Guerrero, just to mention two random names.

They did hire Eaton as a trainer for what I think was still OVW at the time, but it was short lived because he apparently couldn't really teach it to someone else. Barry also had a very short run as a road agent. Not sure why Ricky Morton has never had a chance as a trainer or anything. They hired Dennis Condrey as a trainer in 2010 but I don't know if he's still there.

 

Hey goc, thanks, that's interesting, I had no idea as until early this year I hadn't been following wrestling closely for a very long time. Hiring Condrey but not Morton or even Gibson seems odd.

 

Funny how this works. Eaton can't teach but apparently Billy Gunn is a fantastic trainer.

[jdw]

If the story now is that he left for family rather than work a main event program around the horn with Hogan... well, his family would have told him to stay and work the program to make loads of money.

According to Barry, he left when Jack and Kendall got busted because the feds were trying to tie him into the operation too. Barry convinced Vince to release him to save the company face.

 

Blackjack and Kendell got arrested in 1990. Kendall was Florida Tag Champ all the way to May 9, 1990. Now maybe he was on probation and wrestled until sentencing. But other than Barry's shoot ("1989 or 1990"), most of the stuff I can find online is 1990. Anyone want to rummage through the WON's to see when it happened?

 

Barry sort of wandered off before Survivor Series, and had surgery for a tumor in his pec. He wrestled Jumbo at the Budokan in March 1990. He made his return to WCW in April of 1990.

 

Timing isn't adding up too well. Sound more like Barry used another injury to work his way out of a company he was unhappy with for one reason or another. He did the same thing when leaving WCW in Feb 1989.

[KrisZ]

Steamboat was already pushing near 40 at the time and completely misread what he thought would be cool. Steamboat the ninja karate master was cool. Steamboat as Gene Simmons fire breather is cool. Steamboat as a cartoon character with a bad outfit was not cool.

I thought the Dragon outfit and the fire breathing was a lot cooler than Steamboat the karate kid. That being said, the jump back to WWF in 91 was totally ill-advised.

 

The execution of the return to the WWF (i.e. the Dragon nonsense) was ill-advised. But the return itself wasn't. He hadn't worked in 1990. He only worked Feb through Jul in 1989 for WCW. Before that, he hadn't worked since Mar 1988 for the WWF at Mania. Before that he had worked very sporadically since taking off for his son's birth. The amount of matches he worked from say June 1987 through March 1991 were pretty small considering it was nearly 4 years. Now it's possible that Ricky was really good with his money, and his Gold's Gyms had been doing great~! But considering he he didn't stopped working roughly from March 1991 through August 1994 when his back went out, one gets the sense that there was some need for an income again. I wonder if he had one of those Lloyd's deals like Rude and others did.

 

Steamer worked a good bit for South Atlantic Pro Wrestling in 1990

[jdw]

I remember seeing some of those shows on local cable. I doubt Ricky was making much coin.