April 20, 1987
- Rewinder note: Posting up early today because I have an appointment at the usual time and will not be able to post then. There will also only be a Tuesday issue next week due to American Thanksgiving being kind of busy.
- Jim Crockett Promotions reportedly bought Mid-South Sports (the Universal Wrestling Federation) for $4 million. The deal was finalized on April 9, and Dave hasn’t seen the actual paperwork but he calls bullshit on that price. No way was it that high, and Dave has some sources who say the real price was a lot less than you’d think, but it looks like nothing has ever truly come out since to contradict the $4 million number. The purchase agreement was officially for the assets of Mid-South Sports: more than a dozen rings, plus tv and arena contracts. Crockett didn’t purchase the contracts of the wrestlers, and will instead negotiate with them individually (and probably be able to offer more than they were making with UWF). The Universal Wrestling Federation will shamble on as a zombie promotion. They’ll remain separate, though they will recognize Ric Flair as world champion, and the UWF title will be a “stepping stone” to the NWA title with the UWF champion as designated number one contender. Sounds like a promotion of midcarders. Crockett will be moving the UWF headquarters to Dallas, and Dave supposes this means all of JCP tv headquarters might be there (though they’ll still produce the shows in Charlotte). Talent will move back and forth between UWF and JCP/NWA, and the Rock’n’Roll Express was supposed to head in for May, but with Ricky Morton’s eye injury (more on that later) that’s uncertain. Bill Watts also signed a no-compete clause preventing him from promoting wrestling. Dave’s heard two different versions, with one saying that the clause is for two years and the other for ten. The debts of UWF were not purchased, nor was the tape library, so both of those remain in Watts’ hands (Watts loses the tape library to his ex-wife Ene in their divorce settlement. Ene then sells the rights to WWE in 2012, which is how UWF/Mid-South made it onto the WWE Network).
- Paul Boesch, a Houston promoter and announcer for UWF, has signed with WWF. He wasn’t clued in on the sale of UWF and was apparently upset about that, so one way or another he and WWF got to talking and they signed a deal.
- Dave is already predicting problems for the zombified corpse of UWF. For one thing, Jake Roberts, Grizzly Smith, and Jim Duggan are all working for WWF, so that probably means an open door for other key guys. UWF was also doing poor business, and losing their main eventers will probably make things worse. The upside for JCP is that they now have a syndicated network on par with WWF’s. Having tv is the most important thing in this business today, so that’s the key thing about this deal, and so it may be profitable for JCP by virtue of advertising revenue alone.
- The contract status of the Freebirds is the other big thing to speculate about. Crockett met with the wrestlers and office personnel at UWF and said anyone who wanted to stay was welcome to, but Crockett/Dusty have had some issues with Michael Hayes in the past. Whether that’s forgiven and forgotten or an obstacle is uncertain. There’s also the Japan commitments Terry Gordy, Steve Williams, and Ted DiBiase have. Crockett doesn’t like having guys who are heavily committed to working in Japan (neither does McMahon), so this sale is also a big deal for the wrestling business in Japan. With Hayes putting out his album and Gordy having a bad knee, no clue if they’re looking to even work full-time anymore, and it’s no secret World Class want the Freebirds for themselves away from JCP/UWF. Just before the sale Watts released Ken Mantell, and a lot of UWF talent (the Freebirds, One Man Gang, Missing Link, Chris Adams, King Parsons, Sunshine) all were brought in by Mantell, so there’s still a lot of shakeout to come.
- The Riki Choshu situation is still making headlines in Japan and could really hurt wrestling’s reputation over there. To briefly recap, Choshu wanted out of his All Japan contract to jump to New Japan, but Baba refused and he’s tried to strike a compromise where his JPW group will work both promotions, with Choshu starting by working the All Japan tour that started March 28. Choshu no-showed, and just before the tour the JPW group basically split along idealogical lines. Yoshiaki Yatsu and three of the undercard guys (Haruka Eigen, Masanobu Kurusu, and Shinichi Nakano) are staying with All Japan. Choshu, Super Strong Machine, and Hiro Saito are apparently headed to New Japan (as are Hiroshi Hase and Masahiro Saito), while Animal Hamaguchi and Kuniaki Kobayashi are still kind of uncertain. Shunji Takano, who has been in the US with the AWA for a bit, looks like he’ll be staying over here for a while and his allegiance is uncertain. In response to all this, Baba stripped Choshu of his PWF title and said that Inoki and TV Asahi will need to pay a lot of money to get him to release Choshu and friends from their contracts. TV Asahi has been really displeased with New Japan’s ratings and considering dropping wrestling entirely, so who knows if they’ll be interested in that at all. This whole situation could alienate fans and open up space for WWF to try and make headway with a tour. Dave doesn’t see WWF doing much more than one or two weeks of tours a year in the long run and is skeptical of WWF’s ability to really penetrate the Japanese market with their style of wrestling. Choshu’s reputation is tanking as well, which will probably affect his drawing power for the short term. He, Machine, and the Saitos (who aren’t related) are looking like they’ll debut in the IWGP tournament which starts on May 11 (yeah, no, this is still going to be a mess by then). Between Choshu no-showing Baba (who had a big main event scheduled for April 2 where Choshu/Yatsu would wrestle Tenryu/Wajima, billed as a first encounter between Choshu and Wajima) and the riot from the March 26 New Japan show, this whole situation may also have killed Osaka as a wrestling town for a while.
- The last major news item is that Verne Gagne is suing independent promoter David Strecker. Strecker owns a bar in Minneapolis and booked a show at the Minneapolis Auditorium (where AWA shows are run now). He advertised heavily in newspapers two main event death matches: Bruiser Brody vs. Nord the Barbarian and Jimmy Snuka vs. Col. DeBeers. That second one is one of AWA’s current (and not very hot) feuds. They also advertised Buddy Rose and Billy Robinson. Verne got a restraining order on the ads, but the show went on and drew about 500. Snuka and Robinson didn’t show up, and DeBeers cut a promo calling Snuka a coward who wouldn’t wrestle him “when he wasn’t protected by AWA officials.” One of Eddie Sharkey’s students, Ricky Rice, came out and challenged DeBeers, who walked out (so DeBeers didn’t wrestle either). Buddy Rose did wrestle, but no clue yet if that means he’s done with AWA or not.
- One more big item - the Crockett Cup. Friday’s matches, to put it kindly, weren’t good overall, but there was a great atmosphere, and Saturday’s show was excellent. They didn’t sell out either day, but the combined gate was $300,000, so on the whole a success if still disappointing. People have asked how it compared to Wrestlemania, and Dave says that while Saturday’s wrestling was better, including Friday the Cup underperformed wrestling-wise to Wrestlemania. As for atmosphere, Wrestlemania was budgeted for several million dollars and the Cup for under a hundred grand. You do the math. Anyway, Dave runs down his issues with how JCP ran the show. If you’re going to bring in a team from Japan, pick guys who can get the crowd interested. Who cares if you’re doing it as a favor to Baba, don’t bring Baba and a green rookie literally wrestling his very first match. Stop booking obvious jobber teams into the tournament. There’s no need for a 24-team tournament, and it just meant Friday was full of completely predictable 5 minute matches. Also the Mulkey brothers were misused by being eliminated in the first round when they’re so popular.
- Anyway, Dave reviews both nights of the Crockett Cup. Ricky Morton suffered an eye injury two days before the Cup when he took a thumb to the eye. Word is he can’t see out of one eye and nobody knows if or when he’ll be able to return to the ring, so Robert Gibson forfeited the Rock’n’Roll Express’s spot in the tournament (they had a first round bye, but as it became clear Morton couldn’t work, they did a time limit draw with the Keirn/South vs. Graham/Royal match that would have determined their opponents in the second round. This gave Baba/Takagi a bye into the semifinal. The first night matches are almost all bad. Night two, however, opens with a one-two punch of matches that Dave rates 3.75 (Armstrongs vs. Horsemen) and 4 stars (New Midnights vs. Road Warriors) and says he’s never seen a show with the opening matches anywhere near the calibre of those two. Front row fans had it in for Dusty, chanting “fat pig” at him and the crowd couldn’t emotionally invest because they were so spent from the opening. The Horsemen got cheered against Baba and Takagi in the semi-final. Flair vs. Windham gets five stars from Dave, who notes there wasn’t a single resthold after the first three minutes of feeling each other out. Dave does say that there may have been too many false finishes, and the spots were predictable, which is a given in Flair matches. Guess that’s why this one didn’t get 6 stars.
- Watch: Bob and Brad Armstrong vs. Lex Luger and Tully Blanchard
- Watch: The New Midnight Express vs. The Road Warriors
- Watch: Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham for the NWA World Heavyweight Title
- Dave’s final notes on the Crockett Cup are in part focused on the winners. Obviously Dusty and Nikita were going to win, because Jimmy Crockett and his mom aren’t going to give the check and cup to a heel team, and since the Road Warriors won last year there really wasn’t any other over face team to give the win to. That said, seeing as Dusty is the booker, it opens him up to criticism when he wins the Bunkhouse Stampede two years in a row, plus the World title, plus the Crockett Cup. Magnum T.A. was there and his recovery is amazing, and he can walk a little on his own but mostly uses a walker. It was a beautiful moment when he hugged Dusty and Nikita when he came out, and Dave says that while he’s criticized Crockett for how they have marketed off Magnum’s injury, he was impressed on Saturday as they mentioned Magnum would be there but never made it a promotional focus. They could have been like Fritz Von Erich and made everything about Magnum and sold out because of it, but they didn’t. Out of the arena, the highlight is that Konga the Barbarian punched a hole in the wall of a bar (he was upset it was closing) at 2 am after the Friday show. He was arrested and let out on bail, and while he was being arrested a fan came up and asked for his autograph (the fan got the autograph).
- [JCP/NWA] Also, we have the real scoop on Dennis Condrey leaving the Midnight Express. He just up and disappeared. No call, no show for some dates, and his wife sent word he would be at the March 25 San Francisco show but he didn’t show up anywhere that week. Rumors started flying that WWF signed him, since lost wrestlers usually get found there, but they swear they have no idea where he is and haven’t been in contact with him. So by the end of March they decided Eaton needed a new partner, and they chose Stan Lane.
- WWF is apparently going to give medical and dental coverage to wrestlers. This is long overdue and Dave hopes that other promotions follow suit.
- Dave’s heard that Fantasy, Mike Golden’s valet in UWF, is pregnant. Golden is headed out of UWF to work in the Alabama territory. Anyway, Fantasy has just the foulest mouth and gets amazing heat in small buildings.
- Someone writes in and considers that with how big a name you can get in WWF, most wrestlers would want to work there. Dave responds saying that yeah, the majority probably would, but some guys would find that it isn’t the answer to their needs. Small, talented guys would have a hard time getting over, and young guys can make good money as prelim wrestlers, but WWF has yet to take one and make them a featured guy (and guys like Steve Lombardi, Barry Orton, and Nick Kiniski arguably deserve it). You’re better off making a name elsewhere and coming in, and their only homegrown guys are gimmicks like Hillbilly Jim and Brutus Beefcake. Also you’re going to need a lot of charisma to make it. An older wrestler with a family might also not want to go in, as the WWF schedule is notoriously tough and they can go three weeks or more without a break to go home.
- Meanwhile, a teacher in Japan writes in that he polled Jr. high students and Keiji Mutoh is their favorite. Kids don’t care about Wajima, whom All Japan is pushing hard thinking he’s their next big star. He also comments on seeing an AJW card in Hiroshima, and you have to see it to believe it just how much heat Dump Matsumoto and Chigusa Nagayo can generate working opposite each other.
- Evelyn Stevens, a former wrestler, was found legally sane to stand trial. She shot her husband (Dave says boyfriend) and killed him. More on her story here.
- Next Issue: The death of Mike Von Erich