Changing the NWA in the 80s

[spaldoni]

I was thinking back to the NWA days of the 80s and thought of some changes I would of made. I would of made full use of the UWF buyout. At that point in time many fans considered the UWF the best wrestling program on TV. With the UWF talent mixed in with the hard hitting and well respected NWA talent, that roster was gold. I have TBS, a national cable channel with that 2 hour slot on Saturdays. Instead of the studio ring, I would film the TV tapings at various 1000-3000 seat venues in the NWA backyard. That way you have a hot crowd for TV and it looks more like a national organization. I would book the supercards in well drawing familiar arenas. I would run house shows in NWA and Mid South territories. After doing all this for a year I would slowly venture out to unfamiliar territories to test the waters. I would also give Steve Williams a run with the World Title. The NWA always had a good working relationship with Japan. Steve Williams was huge over there. Having him defend the NWA title in Japan would of made a tremendous amount of money. I wouldn't of gone head to head with the WWF, instead I would of just focused on the NWA product. As long as the NWA was making money and the wrestlers and fans were happy, it wouldn't of mattered if the WWF was the number 1 oganization. I would love to hear thoughts and ideas on this topic.

 

[salopstick]

Read ric flairs book.

The nwa was so many rival promoters that could hardly agree on anything, with Crockett trying to hold them together. In the modern era that wouldn't work long term hence the birth of WCW.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

A couple of issues with what you were suggesting with your post:

• The merger with the UWF and NWA was for the sole purpose of expansion. Many of the superstars either didn't want to work with Crockett Promotions or were on their last legs. The merger helped the NWA get Sting, Dr. Death, Terry Taylor, Eddie Gilbert, and numerous other stars that gave them a short term boost in talent. Thing is, most of that talent (mainly Taylor and Gilbert wanted to work on top, which wasn't possible with Flair at the helm). So there's only so much they could have done with the influx of UWF talent.
• The NWA was the governing body of many territories across the US. The NWA worked with WCCW, the AWA, USWA, and numerous other territories. The only one that wasn't able to be penetrated was the WWF, because Vince wanted his talent to be recognized as the true world champions. But expansion was already done and if you meant Jim Crockett buying all the territories before Vince, then I respond with the fact that the promoters didn't want to sell their stake to Jim Crockett because they felt they had legs to stand on. After a while, they didn't, and it was too late for Crockett to buy anything up and instead, WCW was formed.

To be honest, there's simply not much to change about the NWA in the 80's other than their decisions in broadcasting PPV's. The debacle that was Starrcade '87 spelled the beginning of a long road to bankruptcy for Jim Crockett because of Vince wanting Survivor Series to air the same night as Starrcade and if any cable or PPV companies aired Starrcade, Vince would take away Wrestlemania 3 from them. It also didn't help that Starrcade was ran in the non-NWA background of Chicago, IL. If the PPV were in Greensboro or Atlanta or Norfolk, VA, it would have had the gate receipts to still be able to tread water.

But as far as talent and territories are concerned, there wasn't much Jim Crockett could do with the UWF other than use it for parts and none of the promoters would let Crockett come in and simply expand with no resistance.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

For the NWA to have survived they would have had to unite under a common leader, something most of the promoters would never agree to unless they were that guy.

The best chance they would have had been with WCCW, had David Von Erich survived and become NWA Champion as planned then it would have been concievable that a David v Gino feud could have been a big springboard to big money. However when Gino died too that hope was also gone.

The UWF buyout was weakened by the fact several of their top guys had left there for the WWF shortly before. Both the WWF and JCP failed to utilise the UWF roster in the best ways and Ted DiBiase was the only one really used to his potential. While he arguably reached the peak of his powers post UWF, he was always a WWF guy first and that reflected in how he was pushed.

One Man Gang, who had been UWF World Champion and and beaten Duggan in his "loser leaves town match" was almost relegated to a midcard joke within a year and Duggan never got his momentum going after his mistake on the road, but even prior he was looking ropey with the "USA" gimmick.

So if the best the UWF had to offer had not fared well in the WWE before the buyout, then why would JCP push what was remaining over their own, proven stars once they owned it? or to put it another why, Why would Dusty push them over himself?

It was telling that within 18 months of the buyout a lot of the top pushed UWF talent JCP acquired were WWF talents, Terry Taylor, Big Bossman, Gang and even the Bushwhackers.

So yeah, ultimately self interest stopped the NWA rather than any one specific person or group failing. "Not rocking the boat" probably cost them a shot at greatness.

 

[Makaveli31]

Here are the reasons...

1) Finances. Plain and simple. While JCP regularly sold out shows they also spent lavishly. Private jets for Crockett and his top stars, huge offices, limo's....When Ric Flair said he was limo riding jet flying SOG he really meant it!! Plus Crockett started buying out his competition in order to compete with Vince which drained the company's coffers. The acquisition of the UWF was the nail in the coffin.

2) The debacle that was Starrcade '87 and Bunkhouse Stampede. They couldn't sell out the main arena so they booked the second-rate UIC Pavilion which gave JCP the image of being inferior to the WWF. Then were crushed by Survivor Series held on the same night.Same thing with Bunkhouse Stampede....booked on Long Island. Why?

3) What "Dusty finish" ring a bell? The booking was absolutely horrible during this time period. Booking Ronnie Garvin to win the World title? Booking himself to win Bunkhouse Stampede

Bottom line was nothing was going to stop the ruanway train that was VKM's WWF. They had national TV, cable, TV, WrestleMania, Hulk Hogan, celebs, and all the territories top stars that were worth a damn.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

One of the big problems the NWA always had was the fact that promoters were always highly suspicious and untrusting of each other. It wasn't at all uncommon for accusations of running shows in other people's territories or poaching wrestlers to be made.

Had it not been for Sam Muchnick, the NWA wouldn't have made it for as long as it did. Muchnick was really the one guy that damn near everybody trusted. That's a major reason why Muchnick was president of the NWA for a total of 22 years. The NWA was on the verge of collapse less than 2 years after its formation. Muchnick stepped in and was president from 1950-1960. He stepped down as NWA president and the sparks started to fly again between promoters and the NWA nearly fell apart again under Frank Tunney, Fred Kohler and Karl Sarpolis as president. People practically begged Muchnick to take back the seat, which he did in 1963 and held it until 1975. After he held it, then it was held by Fritz Von Erich for a year, Eddie Graham for 2 years and then Bob Geigel & Jim Crockett, Jr. took over and stayed over it. By that time, so many companies were going under, and this was before the rise of the WWF. Geigel's company and Crockett's company continued to gain more and more power to the point where they basically were the NWA. Eventually, it'd just be Crockett.

Just like wrestlers, all these old school promoters had pretty big egos that they weren't willing to put aside sometimes. By the mid 80s, however, it was just too late to do anything to stop Vince. The promoters who weren't going under eventually would because they didn't have the capital Vince had, nor the major connections in the various cable companies he had. There were also pretty poor booking choices made, such as giving Ron Garvin a run as NWA World Heavyweight Champion. As others have pointed out, Starrcade '87 was a disaster that cost the company huge money. Vince McMahon had been able to tap into the American consciousness, when it came to pro wrestling, in a way that no other promoter dreamed was possible.

The 80s is when pro wrestling really began to change. People were no longer satisfied with seeing Vern Gagne and Nick Bockwinkel trade side headlocks for 30 minutes. They wanted to be entertained by charismatic personas that they could connect with.

If there were two companies that could have merged to possibly create a company that could have taken on WWF between 1982-1985, it was Jim Crockett's Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling. They had the talent, they had the personalities and they had the stars that had a chance to do it. WCCW really pioneered a lot of things that WWF would do much later on, such as syndication, and where they placed their cameras and microphones along the ring area. In the early to mid 80s, WCCW was able to sell out stadiums in Texas. A few times, they even toured the Middle East. Stuff like that was unheard of for a territorial promotion before that.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Assuming that the politics of the NWA could've been avoided, and Crockett was given pretty much free reign, here are some of the changes I would've made:

1) Drop Dusty's last title run, and give Nikita Koloff a run with the title at Starrcade '86 - With Magnum T.A.'s career coming to a sudden end, I think they made a great decision in turning Koloff face. He was massively over at the time, and the title win would've been a bit of a shock to the system that would've caught attention and brought in some great gate receipts. It also would've been a nice counterpoint to the WWF and Hogan's character. 1986-1987 could've been Flair and The Horsemen chasing Koloff.

2) Starrcade '87 - If you're going into Chicago, you book the Road Warriors to win the damn World Tag titles. I mean, that should've been a no-brainer. It sends the fans home happy, and you get a massive pop from the crowd.

3) No Dusty Finishes. Just no. It never played well, even then. Further, I probably would've gotten Dusty out of the NWA in late 87 in a loser leaves match with Flair. Rhodes popularity was waning at that point, and it was no longer believable for him to keep being the go-to face in the company.

4) UWF - Book Williams to take the World Title at some point, and have a big push in Japan for a while. Book a feud with the Four Horsemen and the Freebirds with a Flair/Hayes match to top it off (tell me that wouldn't have been AWESOME).

Would any of these really made a difference? I don't know...again, I don't know what was truly possible in those days with the actual backstage politics. To a certain degree, I think someone needed to call bluffs when it came to guys lying Flair and Rhodes doing the job for others. Also, you can't underestimate the damage that losing Magnum did at that time. But I think these ideas would've made things more entertaining and a bit less predictable too.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Ric Flair's book went into considerable detail about the end of The Jim Crockett era. Some things to consider...

The NWA programming and brand was outdrawing WWE in much of the core areas (NC, SC, GA, Kentucky, Missouri) and thanks to TBS exposure was doing drawing ratings and crowds farther out into WWE areas in PA, etc.

Flair pointed out that when Vince entered a region previosuly dominated by another company, he moved in slowly, staurating local TV with his programming, then appearing only a few times, as if each card was a "Special Event". They drew well because of it but WWE still concentrated the bulk of their touring business in their core areas. They ran Madison Square Garden almost every month but only made ocassional trips to St Louis.

Crockett in contrast, in an effort to outgun Vince, wanted to run every 4-6 weeks in these other towns, traveling way out to the west coast, etc every month, the appearances became more routine and less special (making it harder to consistently sell out) and the travel expenses were huge.

Vince was forcing arenas to sign "Exclusivity" agreements, stating that they would not run wrestling shows except for WWE. Crockett made no such argreements. He could have negotiated agreements likley in his backyard (Carolinas, GA, Kentucky, Tenn, maybe even St Louis) where his brand was more establshed and an easier sell. In Philadelphia the NWA was huge but they couldnt get into the top arena. Same thing in Chicago. Vince couldnt stop them from running cards in his cities but he could stop them from drawing huge gates by keeping them in secondary arenas. I know in Pgh it took a few years before our Civic Arena was willing to negotiate that kind of deal with WWE, somehow despite Pgh being a core WWE city they let the NWA into the Arena. Their first card in 1985 drew horrible but then they topped 16,000 in Oct 86, 17,000 in Fen 87, 11,000 in July 87, 10,000 in Sept 87, and drew well (at least when Flair appeared) through 1989. Vince would have been slowed down if he had been relegated to secondary arenas when he tried to play in the Mid South region and Crockett would have saved a boat load of money had he not toured nationwide every month, instead focussing the house show business on his strongest areas and only occassionally running "SuperShows" in other regions, ala Vince.

When Crockett bought The UWF, he wanted both the talent and their existing TV contracts (they would have been voided if UWF went under and possibly sold to Vince). However, the company was well into massive debt and many of those TV deals were under water (the UWF owed money). Essentially, not only did Crockett spend a lot of cash to buy the failing company but he then inherited all their debt. Contrast that to Vince when he purchased WCW, he paid for the rights to their footage but would not take any takent contracts, instead negotiating new deals with buyouts for talent he was interested in. Hedid not buy any physical assetts of the company (offices, property, etc) so he took on no leases, debt etc. He got the most valuable assett that they had (archived footage, worth millions in repackaged DVD's plus useful in promoting any talent he did sign) without taking on leases, bank loans, property mgt, or talent contracts. Crockett way over extended himself. He could have cherry picked the TV deals in areas he wanted, and could have negotiated new deals with talent rather than take on the entire roster, much of which wasnt useful to him but he was obligated to pay. Had he struck a deal like that, similar to Vince's WCW buyout, he would have saved money initially, avoided the massive debt issues, and only been on the hook paying that talent he really wanted (Michael Hayes, Steve Williams, Sting).

Crockett also relied too heavily on Dusty Rhodes for booking. By the middle of 1988 things were getting stale with every major angle designed to somehow make Dusty rise from the proverbial ashes and trump The Horsemen while The Horsemen essentially always trumped everyone else leading to their ineveitable showdown with Dusty. There were times, particularly in 1985 (Starrcade), 1986 (The Flair takes on the whole roster in a month storyline that sees him go undefeated until his next to last match against Rhodes), as well some anciliary storylines involving Rhodes & Tully Blanchard (1985 Great Am Bash & The 1987 $100,000 Challenge come to mind) that were very entertaining but you can only do the same thing so many times before it gets old. Dusty was very creative but too centered on himself, given his age he should have been pushing Sting & Luger and maybe Whyndam more as top faces to oppose Flair, rather than basically feeding them to Flair until t was time for their next go around. Dusty could have done what Flair & HBK did in WWE during the last runs, have their share of moments as prominently featured major players but also take a step back and help elevate others (Orton, Batista, Edge, Cena). Neither of them was humilaited or forced to endlessly job, each winning their fair share of matches but they didnt dominate the programming constantly. If Dusty had taken a role like that by the end of 86 the booking would have been much more consistent across the board and likely better

 

[spaldoni]

Thank you for all the responses. They were very informative and a lot of great insight. It's to bad promoters just couldn't get along. I think if the NWA, UWF and WCCW had merged properly everybody would of made out. I agreed with a lot of comments about Dusty. Instead of keeping himself in the world title picture he could of been more like the Babe Ruth of the NWA, like a special attraction. He still could of had some of the spotlight just not in the main event scene. Anyways, I want to thank everybody for posting, I read some really great stuff.