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This Week In 90s Wrestling History


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LOVING These bro...

 

Please keep em up.....this is the best new feature for wrestling I have found...

 

Couple questions:

 

1. When and why did Memphis stop filming the Colliseum shows from the main pro camera like so many of the earlier 80's bouts that are on the Memphis set and other TV episodes / etc...? Was it due to smaller crowds and not wanting to show empty seats?

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Thanks! They showed house show clips until the bitter end I believe. However, there were occasions were they ran other arenas in Memphis because of either ongoing disputes with MSC or because they couldn't pack the place anymore. We'll cover MSC renovations in a future installment.

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Thanks! They showed house show clips until the bitter end I believe. However, there were occasions were they ran other arenas in Memphis because of either ongoing disputes with MSC or because they couldn't pack the place anymore. We'll cover MSC renovations in a future installment.

 

Sucks as there looked to have been a LOT of good stuff from early 90's Memphis that isnt in full or even pro shot outside ringside cameras..

 

Loss, my wife hates you now as my Friday night was spent watching various 1/4 NJPW shows from the 90s instead of doing what I was supposed to!!

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Couple thoughts..



1. These articles fuckin rock....period...fuckin rock...lookin forward to them each week....if others havent read them, START NOW...if you didnt know about certain parts of the era, you can now...if you did know about it, this will put you back there and give you some shit to rewatch...



2. Interesting that the Fingerpoke of Doom happens and Nitro pulls its best rating since September the next week..Makes you think that maybe the Fingerpoke itself wasnt the start of the fall, but how they handled it in the upcoming weeks...



3. I had no idea Hogan sent out feelers to the WWF in late 98 / early 99 to get more from WCW....if Vince would have responded, could he have jumped? I wonder if (just for saying) the WWF offered more money, same schedule but he had to not THE MAN and be one of the main guys only...would he have done it or would the ego say no? I am guessing he'd stay, but curious what others think...money or ego for him?


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1997

All Japan Women ran a show at the Ota Ward Gymnasium in Tokyo, drawing a sellout 3,850 fans. In the main event, WWWA World Champion Kyoko Inoue defeated IWA and All Pacific champion Takako Inoue to create AJW’s version of the Triple Crown, which was short-lived. Also on the card, Kaoru Ito wrestled Aja Kong to a 30-minute draw in AJW’s attempt to elevate Ito. AJW was in financial straits at the time because of their inability to create a new generation of stars.

 

Weren't they in financial trouble because of their real estate investments? It was covered in the Observer here:

 

http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-stories/78-bryan-and-vinny-show/39636-sep-1-1997-wrestling-observer-newsletter-arn-anderson-retires-steve-austin-neck-update-all-japan-women-future-tenuous-more

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They'd just come off a big drawing period; even if attendance was down, they should have been able to cover costs and pay wrestlers. The debt must have been massive if they were selling off property to generate liquidity. We don't have a clear timeline on when their investments went bust as the bubble burst over time. It's possible that they were losing money earlier and were reliant on the mid-90s drawing period for positive cash flow, but if that's the case, I don't think they could have created new stars in time for a seamless transition. It takes a good five years for talent to mature so even if they'd had better rookie classes in the early 90s, they still would have struggled. Dave's analysis was a bit off on the spot show attendance. In Tokyo you might have hardcores following the new emerging wrestlers, but in the sticks the draw was always women's wrestling. He's not wrong about the business model being broken, but that raises the question of why the boom period was praised in the first place.

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