Al Posted July 22, 2017 Report Share Posted July 22, 2017 A bunch of WCCW went up, including some stuff from early 82 and some that that WWE has previously told us had damaged master copies. Does anyone know what the first episode of the actual WCCW tv show was?WWE has shown "Texas Wrestling" from the 1950s at the sportatorium. I don't know when they rebranded to World Class, but I think it's a good bet they were running television in the 1970s and maybe back to the '60s under Fritz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted July 22, 2017 Report Share Posted July 22, 2017 I think the first episode of World Class was in 1981 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 Syndication happened in 1982 so the first one in the Network content dump might actually be the first one aired outside of the territory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebrainfollower Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 Interesting. Not really familiar with pre Freebird WCCW that first episode was interesting to see. Bundy with tons of hair is always fun but the production values aren't anywhere near what they would be a year later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 They used to show a ton of this era WCCW on that old WWE On Demand service. There's a lot of Checkmate and Magic Dragon 😄 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 I was shocked when I got All Japan TV from 1984 and realized Magic Dragon was an actual wrestler from Japan. I always assumed it was just some jobber they put a mask on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted July 23, 2017 Report Share Posted July 23, 2017 I was hoping one of the uploads would have the full LLT Cage match between Hayes vs Kerry. We have about 10 of the 14 minutes. Still hoping for the whole bout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iamthedoctor Posted July 24, 2017 Report Share Posted July 24, 2017 Â In any case, besides Dynamite working the majority of the match, the other reason I don't really buy that the 6-man was a late audible is because by that point, seeing Davis have to get in the ring was a greater selling point than a title match would have been. As for the thing with the IC title change...I wonder if that was a happy coincidence or it was a case of "rainy day booking." We know how far in advance things were planned and it'd be odd for one ref to do double-duty for no particular reason when the Mr. X role could have been filled by anybody. I don't know if it's too much of a stretch to make sure the road agent assigns Davis to that particular match. Â Santana lost the IC title to Savage in February 1986, Danny Davis didn't officially turn full on heel until February 1987, a year later. They had been building up to the Davis heel turn forever, but I'm 99% sure that it wasn't even on the radar when the Savage/Tito match happened, it was just happy coincidence that they used as justification for Tito being in the WMIII match. Whether or not it the reason they added Tito is because of Dynamite's back is up to debate. I remember reading that somewhere as well, but I don't remember where, and I can't be arsed to go looking for it. That part of the story may well be bullshit, you could very well be right about that. Â The stuff about Davis being a member of the ring crew and Mr. X as well as being a ref, I got at the time from a friend of mine who worked at Maple Leaf Gardens, plus Davis talked about it in his "Where Are They Now" feature on WWE.com. Â Â Was their any talk of Santana regaining the title? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted July 24, 2017 Report Share Posted July 24, 2017 Not really, Savage was the clear #2 behind Hogan, and at that time the IC champ was the main eventer on a lot of the secondary circuit shows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted July 25, 2017 Report Share Posted July 25, 2017 I wonder how complete the WCCW dump will be, I remember back when Kevin sold them the library the talk was it wasn't stored properly and most of it was allowed to bake in the Texas heat. Already a lot of the episodes have the "Shown in the best version possible due to damage on the original" disclaimer, and I recall the show Hayes and Kevin did on 24/7 skipped a lot of weeks too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRH Posted July 25, 2017 Report Share Posted July 25, 2017 Also, I wonder if they'll eventually get the rights to the 1988-89 WCCW footage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted July 25, 2017 Report Share Posted July 25, 2017 Anything post 1988 is part of the IWCCW library the Savoldis own and I haven't heard of them either being approached to sell or inquiring about selling. You'd think it would be a no brainer, but maybe there's just no interest on WWE's part. Â The real fun would be if they ever hammer out the Memphis rights, since I think the real "finale" of WCCW would be the angle where the USWA took over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickH Posted July 26, 2017 Report Share Posted July 26, 2017 WWE need to look at the Houston library again. What the hell is Corgan going to do with it? Tharpe was a fool not selling to WWE. Every video library needs to belong to WWE, they have the money and platform to stream classic wrestling. Houston is the best library they don't own, it holds full cards from 74-87. Anyone who had NWAonDemand would know it's a goldmine of footage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beast Posted July 26, 2017 Report Share Posted July 26, 2017 What makes you think it wouldn't be sitting on a shelf gathering dust like the vast majority of what they own? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 26, 2017 Report Share Posted July 26, 2017 There's a much higher chance we see more with Corgan than with WWE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickH Posted July 26, 2017 Report Share Posted July 26, 2017 The Houston tapes are 10x in more shape than the World Class tapes. I dont see any reason why WWE would sit on them. They are releasing classic content every month now, I say the more the better. If Vince wanted a library to collect dust I would think it would be the AWA not Houston. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted July 26, 2017 Report Share Posted July 26, 2017 The Houston tapes are 10x in more shape than the World Class tapes. I dont see any reason why WWE would sit on them. They are releasing classic content every month now, I say the more the better. If Vince wanted a library to collect dust I would think it would be the AWA not Houston. Â The sense I get with the reels, and I may be wrong, but I don't think I am, is that the footage is not packaged together well on them. you get different falls of matches on separate reels, interviews all packed together, start and end bumpers here and there. You don't have a coherent product which is why it wasn't presented to us by Bruce as a coherent product. They'd have to basically reconstruct the old TV show from scratch by putting a puzzle together with the pieces flipped upsidedown (and some missing). Â We have a Hidden Gems thing coming up in August. That will have a number of single matches presented without context. Do I think we'd get a few (5-6) of the biggest Houston matches they'd have a year in that format if WWE had the library? Absolutely. Â But the content on the reels is not in a format for WWE to present it to us in any other way that they'd be comfortable presenting it. The x # of matches a week format we got from NWA On Demand is absolutely the best we can hope for from anyone (though they could go back and recreate cards as more and more matches end up on the platform, yes). Â I know you want to see the footage. I do too, but it'd just sit if WWE had it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted July 26, 2017 Report Share Posted July 26, 2017 WWE would sit on the footage. They are in no rush to put new old school content on the network. It took years for them to put more libraries on their that they already have converted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted July 26, 2017 Report Share Posted July 26, 2017 To be fair, after some early shakeups there was really no one leading the department that includes the Network for a while. Once they had someone actually running the ship, we started seeing monthly classic content dumps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted July 27, 2017 Report Share Posted July 27, 2017 I agree with the people saying Houston footage being owned by WWE would be worse and not better. They're releasing full TV shows in order and nothing seems to indicate that they can do that with the Houston footage. Not to mention that a lot of the matches we got on NWAOnDemand wasn't played on TV so if they even did manage to put together the TVs and upload them we'd still miss out on a lot of stuff. Â I don't see any reason to believe that if WWE had gotten the Houston footage instead of Bruce Tharpe that we'd have seen more on WWE Network than what we've gotten from NWAOnDemand, I imagine it would be a LOT less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachchaos Posted July 27, 2017 Report Share Posted July 27, 2017 "It belongs in a museum!" Â No chance in hell we would have seen even a fraction of the footage we have if this had been sold to WWE first. Mainly for the reasons Matt D laid out, but also once Houston is part of the massive collection, it gets marginalized. We've seen a total of 1 Georgia match on the Network, a pretty famous and historic territory. Think we'll see another one any time soon? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted July 27, 2017 Report Share Posted July 27, 2017 More WCCW shows and a Spectrum Old School show have popped up so far today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachchaos Posted July 27, 2017 Report Share Posted July 27, 2017 I'm curious as to whether there is maybe another collection Corgan could purchase to start his own library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachchaos Posted July 27, 2017 Report Share Posted July 27, 2017 Hope there's more Spectrum to come. Â Jesus, 1983 WWF really is a new low. Backlund vs. Iron Mike Sharpe as the Main Event? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted July 27, 2017 Report Share Posted July 27, 2017 From what I was told their were probably between 300-500 matches left on the reels. Some of the reels might only have an interview or 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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