Memories of the territories.

[JTS32]

Jim Ross recently said the wrestling territories were dead, and well he's right. Now I'm not bemoaning, or whining about that fact, just got me to thinking about the regional promotions I grew up watching. I'm 34 so I remember a lot of Saturdays spent watching wrestling and I thought it would be cool to discuss the territories we all remember. Where were they? Who were some of their big stars? What titles did they have? So on and so forth. For me I remember one the most. The first was called CCW-Continental Championship Wrestling. Mainly operated in Alabama, some parts of Tennesee, and Mississippi. Gordon Solie did play by play for a few years there. Wrestlers that spent time there were The Midnight Rockers (Shawn Micheals and Marty Jannetty), The Moondogs, The Nightmares (Danny Davis and Ken Wayne), Steve, Scott, Brad, and Bob Armstrong, Johnny and Tommy Rich, Robert Fuller (who was Coloner Parker in the WWE for awhile), Jimmy Golden, Dr. Tom Pritchard (He was one of the Bodydonnas in WWE). The Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller, Dirty White Boy Tony Anthony, Dutch Mantell, "Wildcat" Wendell Cooley, Mr. Wrestling #2, Exotic Adrian Street, Mr. Perfect Jerry Stubbs(also wrestled as Mr. Olympia, Kevin Sullivan, and Lord Humoungus (Sid Vicious). The promotion at one time carried as many as 4 singles titles. Continental, Southeastern, Alabama, the U.S. Junior Heavyweight Title, and the Southeastern Tag team titles. It lasted till around the early 90s I think and was the one I really grew up watching, so there is my territory to remember how about yours?

 

[gh88us]

I started watching pro wrestling in the late 70's early 80's in NW Indiana. At that time WWE was only available on WWOR on saturdays(featuring Bruno, Iron Sheik, Backlund, then Hogan, Piper, Tito), Chicago Championship Wrestling was on a secondary station and featured (the Road Warriors, Dick the Bruiser, Baron Von Ratchke), then cable tv took off and AWA was shown on espn(rick martel, nick bockwinkel, rockers), and WCW was TBS's big draw(Flair, Magnum TA, Sting) and WCCW was late on saturdays featuring Texas names( Von Arichs, brusier brody, Freebirds)
Wrestling then was really cool to watch, because each territory challenged each other, and then when stars left and showed up in other areas, you had a like or dislike for that person already. Dam the good ole days.

 

[JTS32]

Wrestling then was really cool to watch, because each territory challenged each other, and then when stars left and showed up in other areas, you had a like or dislike for that person already. Dam the good ole days.

Yeah I'm with you on that one. I didn't have cable growing up but a lot of local stations showed wrestling. CCW, I also remember UWF, the old Mid-South of Bill Watts, good stuff. I miss those days for sure.

 

[Rinstone]

i started watching very late in the territories. I remember my dad telling stories about how it was in his day and it sounds both better and worse.
I compair it to the minor leagues of baseball. If you can't see the majors then the single A players look amazing and are entertaining but then all of assudden you get to see Yankees or St Louis Cardinals and these kids in single A look terrible.
Cable and the internet have killed the "minor leagues" of wrestling.
Territories, as JR said, could not equal the production value of the WWE and they couldn't find a TV partner that would pay anything to produce a weekly show. THe days of a studio wrestling show are over.
It is sad but at the same time it is just evolution.
I'm sure 20 years from now our kids will be on a message board somewhere talking about how their dads used to get to see Taker, HHH, HBK, Cena, etc.

 

[akrassikauda]

Ah man were to begin. WWF had syndication and the MSG network for all MSG events which back then was once a month. NWA had TBS Super station and AWA had ESPN. Three different companies from 3 different territories. But the only thing that you were certain to see was The Road Warriors.

WWF had the Northeast locked down. AWA had the Midwest all the way down to Texas. And the NWA had the South and Mid south. Maybe because I'm from NYC I had the ability to watch all the territories and the wrestlers and personalities like Jim Ross in the NWA. Scott Hall,Kurt Henig,The Midnight Rockers, in AWA. And WWF had one place MSG.

With the territories came the signature arena. WWF= MSG. NWA/WCW = Charlotte Coliseum. AWA = Rosemont Horizon. That's what's missing you had a favorite promotion and it was in your region because things were simpler then before the expansion of cable to get your product all over the map and this is were Vince capitalized. I call it the Manifest Destiny of Pro Wrestling

 

[byrnside]

I for one am not actually old enough to really remember these. I started watching wrestling in '89-'90 and for the first few years it was mostly through renting videotapes of recent WWF events. Then of course WCW Saturday Night and Monday Night RAW came along and so on and so forth. What I did want to mention was how much the wrestling industry could benefit from still having these territories. Young guys had nurmerous chances to perfect their craft before showing up in one of the bigger companies and unfortunately that's just not the case anymore.

 

[wrestling89]

Being originally from Hawaii, we somehow managed to get a bunch of syndicated shows. Of course the big three was always there. But I remember enjoying the other shows just as much, just because they had a different feel.

USWA/WCCW was always hot, I used to love watching the Sportatorium matches. Something about those shows, just made it feel like a Saturday (Tuesday has no feel) and I loved it just as much as the cartoons. I think there were even a few Lawler territories on as well, who could tell the difference? CWA, CWF, etc. That's where I became a big fan of Cactus Jack Manson.

UWF was there, although I wasn't really paying attention to them too much as when I started watching wrestling they were dying out.

Global was another good one. I remember being sick sometimes and staying home from school watching these.

Hawaii also had their own show called South-Pacific Wrestling. They had some pretty big names (at the time and in the future.) They had Rocky Johnson, Ripper Collins, The Great Muta, Kevin Sullivan, The Fallen Angel, Mark Lewin, Lars Anderson, etc, etc.

I miss those days, just for the amount of variety that was on TV at the time.