The greatest things ever written on wrestling message boards

[KrisZ]

They signed guys to keep them away from the territories especially Spoiler, Thornton, Wrestling II, Mosca, Buzz, Freebirds, and the like.

[Bix]

Obviously, but that doesn't mean that they didn't have any idea what to do with them.

[Loss]

Hogan/Gordy with Hayes taking bumps on the outside would have been awesome.

[KrisZ]

The way they totally dropped the ball on the Freebirds was especially mindblowing.

 

Freebirds vs. Adonis & Murdoch would've been awesome.

[Al]

The Freebirds debuted in Philadelphia with David Wolfe in their corner. Looking at that match it really looks like WWF was preparing to build them on the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, and within a month they were gone.

[jdw]

I'm not sold that they dropped the ball on the Birds. I don't think we've ever gotten a real clear picture on how things fell apart. It's not like the Birds were the virgin mary. It blew up so quickly, like the Rockers first trip to the WWF, that there's likely something behind it.

 

It took Dave ages before he wrote about how the Rockers imploded, as I don't recall it in the WON when it first happened nor when the Rockers came back to the WWF. It wasn't hard to guess that they likely got zonked out of their minds, but the absense of it being written when Dave wrote so much about "in no condition to perform" type of stuff made one question if that was the reason.

 

The Birds weren't saints, and had pretty large egos of thinking they could work on top where ever they went. The reality of the WWF at that point wasn't a great fit for them, even if there was a shitload of partying going on.

 

John

[jdw]

On Hogan angles, the one with Bundy was pretty big on SNME.

 

I also think that if we go back and look that we'll find more in 1984-85. The TV in that period isn't as well documented in detail over at Graham's as 1986+ is. I also think there were other angles going on in the WWF at the time. Tito-Muraco went around the horn, then they ran a strong angle on Tito-Valentine to set off the primary title feud (which went on forever). Steamboat's feuds always seemed rather focused: Muraco, Snake then Savage.

 

I think we'd be able to draw more of them together if we sifted through all of the TV. Things like Hogan-Funk was a minor angle, but did set up the SNME match. There's more there like that.

 

John

[MikeCampbell]

Hayes told a story during the Legends roundtable discussion that during the Freebirds short lived WWF run, he showed up to TV absolutely hammered and wasn't even able to stand up on his own.

[jdw]

Sounds about right.

 

In the WWF in that era, they were very tolerant of people being loaded. But you needed to be able to perform. They were somewhat tolerant of the old "no condition to perform" of their *stars*, like JYD... but only after they'd become stars in the WWF and were seen of value. If you came in and were instantly stoned to the point of not being able to perform, they seemed to be less tolerant.

 

Add in that Mike probably had a bit of a mouth, you could see a scene when someone from the WWF tried to dress him down for his condition... and the WWF throwing up their arms to say, "We don't need this shit with our massive roster".

 

John

[KrisZ]

The Birds got kicked out of JCP 2 months before their WWF run because of the way they acted in the locker room which included pissing all over the walls.

 

Hogan/Bundy was a semi-big deal but it never mainevented MSG, the Spectrum once, and never Toronto or Boston Garden so that's your 4 main markets at the time and only one main event.

 

In fact during the month before WM II, Hogan did a lot of teaming up with JYD against the Funks and with Steamer against Muraco & Fuji which was interesting.

[jdw]

Given the choice between main eventing the Gardens or Mania, Mania is the big one. It was also largely a blow off: straight to a cage and Hogan won. To a degree, they booked it similar to Hogan-Andre the following year: so big that it didn't need to go around the born. And given closed circuit and PPV, it *did* main event every WWF market on a single night.

 

Muraco got multiple matches at the Garden against Hogan. But I suspect that everyone would agree:

 

Hogan-Bundy >>> Hogan-Muraco

 

in terms of angle and match importance.

 

To my earlier point: WWF and Hogan were booked in ways that weren't exactly standard to how we view things today, or even how other promotions did at the time. A large part of that was because they were a sprawling national promotion where one city's storylines/matches could get months ahead of another.

 

Crockett would run into some of that in 1986-87 as well, which is why we'd often see things like a primary feud for Flair (Windham) and a secondary one (Armstrong) because he'd need something to fall back on in say Charlotte/Greensboro after blowing through the Barry cycle while it was still hitting less run markets elsewhere around the horn.

 

I think I also had a post either here or over on SC about how Hogan was used in the NY market in 1986. Hogan-Orndorff never ran in MSG, except in tags. Yet it did run its full cycle in "New York" and drew a ton. It just happened to be run on Long Island.

 

Their booking of Hogan was very complex, and lord knows how they tracked it back in CT.

 

John

[KrisZ]

That goes to what I said earlier about how Hogan defended against all the heels to make them stronger which was very smart.

 

He would go from Piper to Studd to Orndorff to Valentine to Beefcake to Ventura to Savage to Bundy to Funk to Sheiky to Volkoff to Muraco to Orton to Adonis thus making them all important as credible challengers for the title.

 

More of that is needed today for sure.

 

Plus you gotta look at the history of WWF was that for a long time they only ran a couple of big angles a year before they finally figured out that they needed feuds for the midcarders as well.

[S.L.L.]

To my earlier point: WWF and Hogan were booked in ways that weren't exactly standard to how we view things today, or even how other promotions did at the time.

This pretty much says it all.

 

Lest we forget, the WWF in 1984-85 was doing something that no promotion had ever really done before. There was no established template to follow, there were a lot of transitions to be made, and there were a lot of experiments to be performed, not all of which would succeed. It certainly looks messy now, but now we have a system that's been honed and refined over the course of 25 years. This was just the beginning of that process. Some of it probably was legitimately messy. Trial and error and all that. Some of it was just the nature of transition into this bold new idea of a true national wrestling promotion. And some of it was just things being different in '84 than they are today.

[Bix]

Tamalie on why Black Bart's title reign wasn't THE death knell for WCCW:

 

The fall of World Class had begun far sooner. Some point all the way back to the death of David Von Erich, but while that hurt, the promotion was so hot after (because of?) that tragedy that I don't see it as a true tipping point. I put it down to a combination of things.

 

- Over reliance on the same few wrestlers. The promotion gave pushes to some hot new talent in 1983, but progressively pushed fewer new guys and found itself caught out by 1986 when it needed to freshen things up.

 

- Kerry's motorcycle accident in June of 1986 robbed the promotion of its biggest star at the moment he was needed most of all.

 

- Kevin's progressive decline hurt too. Kevin still looked and wrestled like a superstar up through 1985. After that his physique began to slide and his wrestling became less inspired. By mid 1986 when the bottom fell out, Kevin visibly looked like he didn't care anymore. His physique was gone and he started sleep walking through matches. Injuries and losing heart after David's death have been blamed, but Kevin's substance use/abuse can't be discounted.

 

- Gary Hart got the ball rolling in late 1982. Ken Mantell kept things going from 1983 to 1985. After he left, there was one bad booking regime after another. David Manning wasn't up to it. George Scott had lost his touch and caused irreparable damage. Bruiser Brody wasn't cut out to book and made things worse.

 

- Leaving the NWA and cutting off the promotion from future appearances by Ric Flair. Even if JCP was practically extorting the remaining territories for Flair's bookings, it would have been worth it to World Class to pay up a couple times per year to get him. It also would have spared the promotion the humiliation of being mocked and derided for trying to call its champ a World Title holder at a time when people still took that kind of designation seriously.

 

- On behalf of the UWF, in the spring of 1986 Mantell stole the Freebirds, Tatum, Missy, Link, and OMG in quick succession. Adams eventually followed as did Iceman after the latter worked in Texas All Star.

 

- When those people left, World Class recruited the likes of Blackjack Mulligan, Buzz Sawyer, Matt Borne, and Abdullah The Butcher to replace them and didn't get the desired bump at the gate. I'm not sure who the promotion might have gone after instead, but Buzz didn't bring it after being a pretty big star in previous years and Mulligan quit in a hurry after getting a huge push.

 

- Poorly booking Rude who never got a program with the Von Erichs, lost the title to Chris Adams too soon, and was generally never as over as he could have been had he been used more effectively.

 

- What was cutting edge TV in 1982 was no longer such in 1986, especially after the WWF relaunched its syndicated shows in the fall of 1986. World Class didn't continue to innovate and lost one of its former advantages.

 

By the time Bart got the belt, all this damage had been done. That a guy fresh off a mediocre year in JCP was given the title in a phantom switch took a bad situation and made it worse. I'd say things were already past the point of no return by September of 1986 when there was hope even in May of 1986.

[KrisZ]

I wonder when he thought WCCW died because they had a pretty damn successful 1988-89.

[Loss]

They did? The Observers of '88 paint the picture of a company coming up with great angles and doing so much right and just none of it working.

[Bix]

They were losing a ton of money late in '88 and almost lost the KTVT slot because they couldn't afford it. That's why they were so willing to sell 60% to Jarrett. He cut costs the way you'd expect him to, Embry eventually caught fire, and they were able to pack the Sportatorium for the USWA vs WCCW match in Summer '89.

[KrisZ]

Compared to 1987 they did gangbusters in those years. Watching the 1987 stuff for the 80's project makes you sad after watching the glory years because the Sportatorium was near empty. 1989 was a better business year than 1988 but 1988 was still a success.

[jdw]

I don't recall 1988 or 1989 doing "great business". Did they draw well at their bigger arenas like they did in 1983-85? Or was "great business" just having good Sportatorium gates?

 

John

[S.L.L.]

Yeah, watching the '88 stuff, there is a definite jump in quality, but it is happening in front of some pretty sad-looking crowds.

 

- Kevin's progressive decline hurt too. Kevin still looked and wrestled like a superstar up through 1985. After that his physique began to slide and his wrestling became less inspired. By mid 1986 when the bottom fell out, Kevin visibly looked like he didn't care anymore. His physique was gone and he started sleep walking through matches. Injuries and losing heart after David's death have been blamed, but Kevin's substance use/abuse can't be discounted.

This is something I'm not really seeing. Whatever you think of Kevin, his talent and physique were pretty consistent throughout the decade. Curiously enough, of the two matches of I've seen that I thought he gave a poor performance in, one of them was his title win over Black Bart. But there's no real decline as far as I can tell. He is pretty much the same guy throughout his run.

[KrisZ]

They weren't at the level of 83-mid 86 but they still were drawing way more than 87 at the Sportatorium. They drew poorly on other shows outside of Dallas. Plus the crowd heat was on a totally different level than 87 and in some cases they were as hot as at least 85-86 especially in the Embry era.

 

Regarding Kevin, he declined definitely from 87-on as his problems got bigger and he would go months at a time without even working Dallas.

[BruiserBrody]

Was Kevin's mid ring collapse (where Tommy Rogers had to give him CPR) taped? Did Apter mags report on it?

 

More WCCW needs to find its way to youtube. I want to see the carny BS of the announcers declaring Brian Adidas a suspect in Mike VE's death and Chris Adams blindness being equal to Gino dying among many other things...

[Al]

I don't know if the Apter mags reported it at the time, but they listed it in their wrestling history section in the PWI Almanac.

 

May 11: Kevin Von Erich collapses in the middle of the ring during an eight-man bout pitting him, The Fantastics, and Bruiser Brody against Brian Adias, Black Bart, Al Madril, and Al Perez. Fantastic Tommy Rogers, seeing Von Erich turning blue, administers cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

[Bix]

They were taping the KTVT show, but the match never aired.

[Loss]

I would love for that "horrible beyond belief" Flair/Kerry match to surface at some point for comedic value.