Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Got some answers here, but would still be interested in exploring this more. And I get Brody not doing jobs because Baba didn't want him to, but what was his excuse for not putting over Inoki or anyone else in NJPW in 1985? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Click through the thread for the whole thing. I had to post it in three parts. This was to hype the big Memphis card that had Flair-Koko, Horsemen vs Lawler-Dusty-Magnum, and Rock N Rolls vs Russians. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Later in the vignette, they ended up shaving half of her head and she began to morph into the Luna Vachon that closer resembles her more famous look, but I actually think this look would have been creepier within the context of the overall group had they stuck with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 5, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 Should have said *stuck* in the middle, not *caught* in the middle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clintthecrippler Posted March 5, 2021 Report Share Posted March 5, 2021 6 hours ago, Loss said: A thread on WCCW: While Dynamic Duo vs Von Erichs was definitely the last program to draw on a week-to-week basis (even a steel cage match AFTER this blowoff drew 13,000 to Reunion Arena on Thanksgiving Night), I think it's a slight misnomer to point to 1985 Cotton Bowl as the true "last hurrah". Even without an NWA Title match, they still drew 24,000 to Texas Stadium for the 1986 Parade of Champions. Even being generous with the idea that crowd came primarily BECAUSE it was the Parade of Champions, that's still no sign of a promotion that is near-death just yet. And even after Kerry's accident, the appeal of seeing Chris Adams win the new WCCW "World" Title was enough to draw 11,000 to Reunion Arena on July 4th. I really do think though that second half dropoff in 86 was SO massive because of the combo of things piling up. Gino dying, Kerry's accident, Ken Mantell taking off to UWF with a bunch of talent, and no compelling heel challengers lined up for Chris Adams to defend his championship against. They might have been able to weather the tide another couple of years if only one of those things happened, but all of that happening in under six months would have killed any promotion. Watching the second half 1986 shows on WWE Network when you can literally count the dozens of people in the Sportatorium...that drop came FAST. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boondocks Kernoodle Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 On 3/5/2021 at 9:04 AM, Loss said: There's a promo in '95 ECW (which I remember fondly as it was the on first ECW show I ever saw) where Raven and Richards are on the beach in Florida along with Beulah (in a bikini like Nancy here) and Richards talks about how much he loved Florida Championship Wrestling and Kevin Sullivan's stable until Luna ("a moronic, stupid moronic retard who shaved her head right down the middle!") joined. Until now I never knew that it was an homage to an actual Sullivan promo. Raven grew up on the Florida territory and surely remembered this promo many years later. EDIT: Around the 21-minute mark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KinchStalker Posted March 8, 2021 Report Share Posted March 8, 2021 On 3/5/2021 at 6:00 AM, Loss said: Got some answers here, but would still be interested in exploring this more. And I get Brody not doing jobs because Baba didn't want him to, but what was his excuse for not putting over Inoki or anyone else in NJPW in 1985? My range of wrestling history knowledge is pretty narrow, so I don't know how much this will contribute to the discussion, but I think I think the simplest way to put it is that NJPW made a colossal mistake in booking Brody to be *the* gaijin star, even if changes in the American landscape had made that their only option. The wisdom of Baba (and by extension, NTV-imposed booker Akio Sato, who occupied the position from mid-1981 through 1984) was to try as much as possible to book a gaijin of equal or comparable stature alongside Brody. This was a major reason why it would have been so important to acquire Hansen when Abby jumped ship; Snuka sure wasn't going to fill that void. This might be pedantic, but I think that the "Baba didn't want Brody to job" narrative, while in keeping with how he would book the Road Warriors, might have been a bit closer to "Baba gave Brody the room to be booked as he wanted because of a general compatibility between Baba's gaijin-on-top booking mentality and Brody's selfishness, but always made sure that Brody wasn't the singular star". (Note: Baba had apparently known that Brody was likely to jump ship before he did so, but didn't try to stop him because, at that point, Hansen and Choshu were more popular.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 18, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 18, 2021 Report Share Posted March 18, 2021 Interesting to think there was a lot of hand wringing about having too many shows on Mania weekend. when 1986 you had the top four promotions in the US running major shows all within a month of each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted March 18, 2021 Report Share Posted March 18, 2021 Worth noting though that except for Wrestlemania 2, the shows were competing in separate markets. You couldn’t just choose to watch the Crockett Cup without actually traveling to the show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 18, 2021 Report Share Posted March 18, 2021 True, but since the WWF was pushing closed circuit TV (PPV wasn't really a thing yet) it was competition for all the other shows. So every market would have been their local show trying to run against Wrestlemania. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 18, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2021 I think the more relevant point is that I can't think of another relatively brief spell with that many gigantic shows in that short a period of time. WM2 in Chicago was the lowest drawing of them all with 9,000 in attendance, but I'd still roll all 3 WMs together since it was meant as a multi-location show. Between all three, you still end up with just under 40,000 fans buying a ticket to see part of Wrestlemania. Both Wrestlerock and the Parade of Champions drew more than 20,000 people. Crockett Cup, the least successful of them all, still drew 13,000 fans to the Superdome. A disappointing number I'm sure given what I'm sure the expectations were with the weeks of UWF cross-promotion and loaded lineup, but still not a bad one. All in all, you have nearly 100,000 tickets sold to supercards across multiple companies. That doesn't even consider that within that same time period, the WWF drew 15,000 to MSG on 4/22. All in all, if you break WM2 up into three shows, you have 6 cards drawing more than 10,000 people from four promotions over a 5-week period. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilTLL Posted March 19, 2021 Report Share Posted March 19, 2021 Chicagoans must really hate sitting around watching CCTV, because Rosemont drew 18k for a B-show just three weeks earlier with Bundy/Hillbilly, Santana/Savage, and Funk/JYD. WWF also drew 16k in Toronto on 4/19 (really amazing for a B-show topped by a freaking Dream Team/Bulldogs six-man) and an almost unbelievable 26k in Detroit on 4/26 for Hogan/Savage, with MSG-style CCTV spillover from Joe Louis into Cobo Hall. Toronto drew at least 12.5k for six shows in a row from February-June. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2021 A great point! I forgot about Detroit. Wrestling has been hotter at a few points, but that may be the last time the wealth was spread quite that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dav'oh Posted March 19, 2021 Report Share Posted March 19, 2021 4 hours ago, Loss said: you have 6 cards drawing more than 10,000 people from four promotions over a 5-week period. How unusual was that? I don't know the capacities of the various territories' "home" arenas, but if Lawler was pulling full houses weekly at MSC, Verne was doing well in St. Paul, Portland Mid-South Florida and MSG did well in a particular week, Toronto and Greensboro had loaded cards - or whatever, would there have been single weeks where wrestling did those numbers? What if we go back to the seventies where you had SF or Detroit added to the mix? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2021 I don't know how unusual it was, but even of those 6 cards (or 7 now, with the Detroit show added), all but two of them drew more than 15,000 and three of them drew more than 20,000. Three 20K+ shows in three different markets from three different promoters over a two week period (4/20 - 5/4) can't be something that has happened very many times. It absolutely hasn't happened *since* 1986. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 19, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted March 19, 2021 Report Share Posted March 19, 2021 On Thanksgiving Day 1984, JCP (Starrcade), WCCW (Star Wars), and the AWA all drew in excess of 15k and Mid-South (Superdome Extravaganza) drew 14k. The WWF drew 22k at MSG four days later. Thanksgiving was the traditional biggest day of the year in a lot of territories, so it wouldn't surprise me if something similar had happened in previous years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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