JerryvonKramer Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 I’ve been reading around George Scott as a booker: how he transformed Mid-Atlantic to be a singles territory built around Johnny Weaver while being instrumental in bringing in new talent including Flair, Steamboat and Piper. So the story goes Scott made Flair study tapes of Buddy Rogers to become the Nature Boy when he wanted to work a cowboy gimmick. Scott literally “tore down” the old territory to build it back up again: retraining the fans to appreciate a new style. It took at least 8-9 months. Later in his WWF run as booker, 84-86, he also “retrained” the old New York crowds: upping the work rate, bringing in NWA guys (Funks, Steamboat, Piper, Bob Orton Jr, etc) who worked a different style from the old Vince Sr promotion. Again this took time. It seems his GCW run in 83 was cut short after 2 months before the Scott “retraining” of the fans could set in. It strikes me that we might say the same thing about what he was trying to do in WCW. The knock is that times had changed, he didn’t want to give away free matches on TV (Flair vs Steamboat), that he was too old school and had failed to move with the times, but what if he was simply trying to retrain the WCW fans as he had done once before? He was coming in after Dusty hotshotting. In many ways Flair vs Steamboat was a throwback sort of feud to get the promotion away from gimmicks and back to the hard-hitting work rate Scott Mid-Atlantic style. If Turner had given him more time we might have seen him develop a hotter promotion and reinvigorate the live shows. Can anyone say the committee was better? Furthermore, consider that Scott didn’t do any shoots that I know of or write a book: fans have heard about his run almost exclusively through his enemies like Dusty and people who flat hated him like Cornette. PWO was once the home of revisionism and re-evaluation. Can we give Scott a fairer shake? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 @JerryvonKramer other than Flair/Steamboat and the return of Terry Funk, what are Scott's other successes during his 89 run, in your opinion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 The TV is brutally boring at the time and it's obvious he just doesn't get guys like Sting. I would say he is fairly portrayed for this time. Bix and Zellner did a breakdown of his brief run and it's just a guy that was out of touch with the times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 9 minutes ago, Infinit said: @JerryvonKramer other than Flair/Steamboat and the return of Terry Funk, what are Scott's other successes during his 89 run, in your opinion? Not entirely sure when exactly the run starts but Flair vs Luger in 88 was hot. But I’m thinking less of his actual successes and more that the criticisms against him are unfair because he wasn’t given the time to work his vision. It’s similar in a way to the Bill Watts run: I can see what he was trying to do. Only — different from the Watts run — there are some really awesome matches also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoS Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 Can we really excuse stuff like not selling the all-important TV main event while owned by a TV media company cuz he didn't want to hurt the houses which were already in the toilet, as retraining the audience? I think that's very much an example of someone losing touch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, Mad Dog said: The TV is brutally boring at the time and it's obvious he just doesn't get guys like Sting. I would say he is fairly portrayed for this time. Bix and Zellner did a breakdown of his brief run and it's just a guy that was out of touch with the times. Right but that’s pretty much the standard take. If George Scott had been fired from Crockett in early 1974 people would have said he was out of touch with the times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 Without jumping into micro specifics, I think George was behind the times in his thinking. The way he basically tanked the New Orleans Clash really sticks out. It wasn't 1976...or 1986. Cable was a reality and he wasn't able to balance TV and house show importance, which sabotaged any improvement to in ring work, in my opinion. Plus, he didn't see money in then Midnight Express, which is insane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 That Herd said he hired George Scott specifically (and maybe only) so he could get Ricky Steamboat was the most interesting thing in that entire interview, maybe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 2 minutes ago, Infinit said: Without jumping into micro specifics, I think George was behind the times in his thinking. The way he basically tanked the New Orleans Clash really sticks out. It wasn't 1976...or 1986. Cable was a reality and he wasn't able to balance TV and house show importance, which sabotaged any improvement to in ring work, in my opinion. Plus, he didn't see money in then Midnight Express, which is insane. But this is what I’m trying to say: Scott deliberately tanked shows in 1973-4 as well. And it was seen as insane then too. He may have had a method. What did the Midnights draw for JCP? Starrcade 87 had them in a well hyped gimmick match and drew 8,000; Starrcade 88 drew 10,000 so there’s not much in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 12 minutes ago, JerryvonKramer said: Not entirely sure when exactly the run starts but Flair vs Luger in 88 was hot. Flair and Luger in 88 was all during Dusty's run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 Just now, JerryvonKramer said: What did the Midnights draw for JCP? Starrcade 87 had them in a well hyped gimmick match and drew 8,000; Starrcade 88 drew 10,000 so there’s not much in it. I'm pretty sure the MX did pretty great business semi main eventing A towns and main eventing B towns from 86-88. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, Infinit said: Flair and Luger in 88 was all during Dusty's run. When did Scott come in exactly? After Starrcade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 Just now, JerryvonKramer said: When did Scott come in exactly? After Starrcade? January 1989, from what I recall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 Deliberately tanking shows when you have a cartel imposed monopoly on a territory is one thing. Doing it post-expansion is insane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 30, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 18 minutes ago, Matt D said: That Herd said he hired George Scott specifically (and maybe only) so he could get Ricky Steamboat was the most interesting thing in that entire interview, maybe. My god they dug Jim Herd up! Amazing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 His WCCW run wasn't particularly good either. Let's remove the pros and cons of his thought process. He failed to understand and operate in a corporation environment. This was early into a buyout and TV people aren't going to accept tanking a rating. And again, if you watch the TV at the time, it's not like he was short term tanking things to build a bunch of young guys. If anything he was undercutting Sting who was his young gun. That match with Butch Reed at Chi-Town is a crime and he should have been fired for exposing Sting on PPV like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 1 hour ago, JerryvonKramer said: My god they dug Jim Herd up! Amazing Herd isn't dead...technically. He recently did that interview with Conrad Thompson (which I recapped here) and if you believe Herd, Scott really wasn't around long enough to do much good. I know the popular narrative about Scott's run in WCW has been "as told by" Jim Cornette, so I'd be curious to hear from others who were there...but surprisingly Herd and Cornette's versions are pretty similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 I do think Cornette is guilty of retroactively undermining Scott's 1970's work to an unfair degree. Cornette will downplay Scott's contributions by saying he had Flair, Steamboat, etc., but a.) Cornette himself has pointed out that all successful bookers have great talent. b.) Scott was the one who gave Steamboat his first push and reinvented Flair as the new Nature Boy. Scott deserves all the criticism he gets for his 1989 booking but he was a legitimately great booker for JCP in the '70s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 All I really know about him is that he is the one who taught Flair to always bring a change of clothes to TV tapings and not to wear the same ring gear or suit if you come out to do promos on two consecutively taped shows. He was a booker for the WWF in 1984-1985 as well, but we never hear much about that either way. Dave says he had to be organized to do that job because of all the moving parts, but that was really more logistics planning than booking, since the big vision stuff was Vince. But who knows? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 I also think his bad runs at the end of the 80s doesn't reflect on his work in the 70s or 80s. Everyone has their expiration date. Watts run in WCW doesn't effect what he did in Mid-South and the UWF. In the comic realm. Go read something Alan Moore has done the last 10-15 years. Pretty good shot it's garbage but that doesn't really take away from his really good work in the 80s and 90s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 And probably the biggest thing I learned from the Gary Hart book was that we fell into a habit of focusing on pre-90s bookers as mainly matchmakers/writers as opposed to being the people who gathered and literally "booked" the talent. So if Scott had success with successful runs, some of that was his ability to either gather or hold talent in a territory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 6 minutes ago, Matt D said: And probably the biggest thing I learned from the Gary Hart book was that we fell into a habit of focusing on pre-90s bookers as mainly matchmakers/writers as opposed to being the people who gathered and literally "booked" the talent. So if Scott had success with successful runs, some of that was his ability to either gather or hold talent in a territory. Very true, the role of a booker changed a great deal in the post territory era. Not the least of which being the need to get talent over and keep them that way longer rather than the territory way of cycling people in and out to keep them fresh. Who knows how well the great bookers of the past would have been able to manage in an era where everyone stays around for years (or decades if its WWE) rather than a short cycle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 1984 WWF is one of my favorite years for any promotion ever, honestly. Great talent. Great angles. Great feuds. Great matches. Absolutely no idea how much credit Scott gets for it all though The evidence from his 89 run suggests someone not suitable for the changing times, with all the examples already mentioned. Would we have got Flair vs Funk without him? (one of my all-time favorite feuds). Muta's ascension? Probably for the best how things panned out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 He was only booker from February 89 to until December 89 or so right? The biggest knock is that they didn't draw well in the those 11 months. But they hadn't drawn well in the previous 2 years either so you couldn't blame him for that. And they didn't draw well in the 4 years that followed. So I don't know if he can be blamed for that. Also he didn't really have the book long enough to have any sort of real impact, positive or negative. Sure there were missteps during his short tenure, starting with bringing back Steamboat as a boring family man against the uber cool Flair. Also keeping Sting and Luger in the mid card for most of the year. Not utilizing Midnight Express, which I saw as part of a larger problem with not utilizing tag teams in general. Muta losing 3 times in one night when he was red hot. Starcade being a tournament rather than a culmination of a feud. All of those are valid critiques. But at the same time, Scott's tenure produced some of the greatest matches ever. Every major event had at least one all time classic match that was worth your money. That can't be disputed. I think it would have been interesting where it would have gone had he stayed another year or two coming off the tournament which attempted to elevate Luger and Sting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 There's also the issue of Cornette, who when he's not rolling in the mud being a troll is one of that era's top historians, not being a fan of the guy. It's understandable since him not seeing value in the Midnights would hurt Jim's bottom line as well, but it's something that doesn't always seem to be taken into account by people who read his opinions in a history context. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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