WWE TV from Late 80's to 1996

[Mr.Fortuna]

Can some of the older fans maybe explain to me the old way the WWE used to do thier TV shows. Basically from what I understand is that they would tape about a months worth of tv in one night.

Now from what I understand an average night would last about 4 hours. Imagine being in attendance for that long watching jobber match after jobber match. But attendance was always packed.

I really love this old tv concept on how they would bascially move storylines at a slower pace with big stars rarely appearing on tv, the big cards were saved for ppvs and house shows.

 

[bigbootydaddyV]

I never went to a Superstars taping because they didn't have them around SF at that time, but you have to consider commercials, backstage segments, etc. The crowds were probably not there more than a couple hours and probably got some house show type matches as well. I think back then too they'd only use certain parts of the arena and make it look bigger than it was and they damn sure weren't going to places like staples or anything either.

 

[BMaurice82]

I went to a house show/superstars taping i Believe in 91 or 92 in fresno. They would shoot the "jobber matches" and maybe like a Funeral Parlor or Barber Shop segment. After that they would have a regular house show where all the big names would still wrestle...I believe the house show main event when I went was The Berserker vs The Ultimate Warrior hahahah, and I'm pretty sure Rick Rude was drunk because when he did his normal pre match talk pissing on the Fresno fans, he said Anaheim instead of Fresno lol

 

[No Sell]

I’ve attended quite a few TV tapings in New Haven & Hartford CT starting at the 1st Wrestling Challenge taping ever in late August of 1986. From there I attended a SNME in Hartford (Hogan / Ondorff cage match) & a Superstars taping in early Feb 1987 which was really cool as there is a lot of WMIII buildup. I attended at least 2 to 3 others between 87 – 92 as well.

As for the time of the show, I recall them running 3.5 hours to 4 hours. I recall these shows that you had no idea you were even going to a taping. They would announce 2 matches (an opening match which was a hot feud at the time and a main event involving Hogan to fill the building). There would be mention made you’d see several other stars but they never let on it was a TV taping.

If anyone is interested the matches for the 1st two tapings I attended were as follows:

Hartford Civic Center in late Aug 1986:
Opening match – Bulldogs vs. Studd 7 Bundy for the titles
Main Event – Hogan & JYD vs. Adonis & Orndorff

New Haven Coliseum in early Feb 1987:
Opening match – Piper vs. Adonis
Main Event – Hogan vs. Hercules

Both were legit sellouts to the very last seat.

 

[pessimism101]

I can't remember if any of the shows I've been to at Maple Leaf Gardens were for TV tapings, so I don't know from personal experience. However, if you go to www.thehistoryofwwe.com, they have an extensive results section for virtually every arena show starting from the 1970's and they also include what, if any, TV tapings were done at the show. From the looks of it, many matches and segments would be taped at a single show, however they may or may not air in the order they were taped. Example: a match taped on June 6th may precede a match taped May 15th in TV. In response to the post, most events that had TV tapings not only had the main roster wrestling in dark matches, but many wrestlers would wrestle multiple times in the same night.

As a previous poster already mentioned, the WWF would advertise one or two matches featuring main eventers or upper mid-card talent as a way to sell the event. Back in the 80's, just mentioning that Hulk Hogan would be in attendance was enough to sell tickets.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

I went to a house show/superstars taping i Believe in 91 or 92 in fresno. They would shoot the "jobber matches" and maybe like a Funeral Parlor or Barber Shop segment. After that they would have a regular house show where all the big names would still wrestle...I believe the house show main event when I went was The Berserker vs The Ultimate Warrior hahahah, and I'm pretty sure Rick Rude was drunk because when he did his normal pre match talk pissing on the Fresno fans, he said Anaheim instead of Fresno lol

That was an old Rude trick to get heat, misname the town, as if he couldn't care to get it right...

From what I remember of the UK shows back then they would film angles before the PPV segment of the show. Back then a lot would appear as vignettes on the other shows. Many of the older UK shows were video only, so there were always skits about the superstars on them, often filmed with the live crowd outside.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Can some of the older fans maybe explain to me the old way the WWE used to do thier TV shows. Basically from what I understand is that they would tape about a months worth of tv in one night.

Now from what I understand an average night would last about 4 hours. Imagine being in attendance for that long watching jobber match after jobber match. But attendance was always packed.

I really love this old tv concept on how they would bascially move storylines at a slower pace with big stars rarely appearing on tv, the big cards were saved for ppvs and house shows.

Before the mid 90's, especially in the 70's and 80's, there was no PPV, certainly no monthly PPV. The only wrestling on TV was the syndicated programs offered by the different companies. The only promotion with true national exposure was Jim Crockett Jr's NWA on TBS. Eventually due to the sucess of that program (which at one point WWE tried to buy) Vince McMahon got a deal for Monday Nights on USA.

Without monthly PPV and the revenues they bring a lot of importance was put on house shows, the TV basically was to establish the fueds, more through promos and related skits, to get fans to pay to see the top stars wrestle each other at the arenas. This is why very few "main event" matches aired on free TV in the 80's. Every once in awhile the NWA would do a special program in the Saturday Night time slot, showing house show matches taped in different arenas pitting top stars against each other. WWE gave us mostly mid card matches on it's Monday Night show, but gave better bouts on it's periodic Saturday Night Main Event. The thinking was if top quality matches were readily available on free TV why would fans come to live shows ?

Even when PPV started in the mid 80's, it was relatively new. NWA was making a lot of money out closed circuit viewing for the first few Starrcades, which is why Vince & WWE created WrestleMania. Even still, by the early 90's WCW (the old NWA after Turner took over) and WWE only had a few major "Event" shows. WWE put a lot of effort into Royal Rumble early in the year, WM in sprng, SummerSlam in summer, and Survivor Series at year's end, with WM it's biggest show. WCW put a lot of effort into SuperBrawl early in the year, Great American Bash in the summer, and Starrcade late in the year with that as it's signature show. Later on Halloween Havoc would become a signature event in the fall.

When the companies, started I believe by WCW because of the discounts in production costs afforded them by their association with Turner, started churning out PPV's on a bi monthly and eventually monthly basis the TV had to move faster. Feuds originally were drawn out longer as they played out on the house show circuit, now they had to move a much faster clip. WWE was forced to follow suit.

The two companies (by now AWA, World Class, etc were pretty much gone, it was two horse race essentially) still relied heavily in their syndicated shows and used main event matches on free TV sparingly until Monday Nitro came along. In order to draw attention Nitro started booking top star matches on a regular basis, and with the help in lower production costs went live almost every week, giving them a much more excitinmg feel than the taped WWE programming. WWE was forced to keep up, and by the mid 90's you had monthly PPV's and main event matches on free TV almost every week. Both companies stopped producing their syndicated shows for local TV by the late 90's to focus on their cable programs and PPV. Surprisingly house show business remained brisk despite all the good matches available free to anyone with basic cable.

As far as house shows lasting 4 hours, typically that was false back in the 80's. The house shows were almost exclusively main event caliber matches, usually running about two hours long. I attended a lot of NWA and WWE shows back then. The only time you got more than one or two "jobber" matches was if they were filming for TV, since almost none of their V programming was live (even Sat Nite Main Events were taped in advance, only NWA Clash Of Champions Specials actually were shown on live TV back then) I attended a WWE TV taping in Erie Pa in 1992 that lasted 3 hours, counting a 20 minute intermission, this was because they made HBK wrestle 4 times, taping three "jobber matches" for different TV programs plus the one star match he had. Ric Flair also wrestled multiple times.