@@ramonalejandrosuare i think it would have to start by showing how successful and promising each existing promotion was, showing how over hit really was in their region, so it's have to at least quickly go back to when TV really started to take off, then you can kind of fast track Otto the early 70s when Memphis took off cuz of Lawler n work it's way up mostly chronologically but with a little Tarantino in there to spice it up a little. were kind of past when it would've been been cuz so many people have died to tell their stories, like lanny poffo is gonna have to tell about how crazy it was to have macho on essentially local tv with icw, and only Kevin von erich and Michael Hayes can retell the Dallas days etc. but great idea, if watch that shit for sure!
@@BarsAnderson I think you could begin the story in the early 1980s when each territory was already formed and begin with Vince's rise to owner of the WWF. It's through this kind of a tycoon figure buying up market after market that you really see how the entire decline of the territories began and ended.
@@tonyruby4467 - th-cam.com/video/oRrltumBm84/w-d-xo.html = #fpww #fireprowrestlingworld Fire Pro (Wrestling World) video game = "Promoter Mode" (PC / Steam mode) = Ep 1 - "Creating My OWN Wrestling Company" (3 hrs. 51 mins.) = by: Pulse - (streamed live) on Mar 2, 2019
When I was a kid growing up in central canada saturday was "wrestling day" on TV. At 10 AM we got AWA via a Minneapolis broadcaster broadcast by a local independent network. At 12 PM we got WWF on the local CTV broadcaster. At 2 PM we got Stampede on a different local independent network. At 4 PM we got Crockett/WCW on TBS via cable. We were spoiled for choice but there was something for everyone's wrestling taste.
Where I lived there were a couple of local feds that got onto late night rotations via public access too, one was broadcast at 1 in the morning on sunday and the other was on at midnight on tuesdays, they were the last broadcast programs of their respective days (the public access channel would go off air at 2 AM and come back at 7 AM the next morning).
That was just one of several ways Crockett overextended himself. He should have just focused on what he had already. I think that, had he done so, Vince wouldn't have been able to blow Crockett out of there with dynamite!
Huh? In the end, he didn't pay that much because of the bankruptcy. He didn't write Watts a check for $4 million in 1987. Anderson is full of shit, and would have no knowledge of the particulars behind the sales anyway.
I member it had baron von rashchke who looked like he was 65 in the ring. AWA had the Trooper as the top good guy. Jake Milliman as the underdog and the heels were mike enis and bloom who eventually became the beverly brothers in wwe.
I do that was a disaster to me all the top guys for the most part looked over the heel, I kept asking why is Greg or Verne Gangne always in high profile feuds that they shouldn't have been in at that point, and how come they continue to advertise that AWA blockbuster match that never aired?
yup, AWA on ESPN (and TSN in Canada) was gawd-awful. not sure why ESPN didn't know that. around the end, AWA had crowd of 200 in toronto........... it's too bad as i love the whole AWA 1970s/Verne Gagne feel
I genuinely don’t think the territories could’ve done much or anything to survive. Not to say it couldn’t be possible for some to have stuck around but more so the reality that none of the territory promoters would’ve been willing to do the things they needed to do to stick around. Vince actually attacking various territories certainly sped up their demise but I think it simply sped up the inevitable more than truly causing it. The territory promoters were stuck in the ways business ran in the past and for the most part too stubborn to adapt and/or embrace the ways the business evolved, which was the polar opposite of the way Vince operated. Vince consistently reinvested into the company and made moves for the future that resulted in higher revenues and multiple revenue streams to monetize which the territories didn’t do. Vince was so much better in investing for the future over the current day it’s kinda wild to think of the things he did. For example, he would pay to be on television systems to give his show exposure and awareness and then when the show did well would come back to the network to get a better deal since they now had an established product they didn’t want to lose. The territories wouldn’t have been willing to take those risks. But he also built up revenue lines so much more than they did with merchandise, videos, PPV, etc. The territories were always focused solely on selling tickets to make money which set a ceiling that couldn’t survive McMahon. The only territory promoter who really thought to the future was Crockett - the others were just too stubborn to even consider making moves to grow their revenue base past ticket sales like McMahon did. The territories survived and thrived when they did largely thanks to the business model they all operated under. Essentially every territory had free rein to be a monopoly of wrestling in their area and never had to truly compete against anybody. They were able to thrive because there was nobody to take their market share from them. Once an alternative emerged it was going to be tough to survive if you weren’t willing to adapt and none of them were. None of them had the resources, foresight, or willingness to do the things that would’ve given them a chance if were being realistic.
We still have the "CanCon" laws up here too, they were recently modified to be more restrictive by forcing TV and radio broadcasters to broadcast at least 60% canadian content (excluding news) per day. The reason these laws are on the books is to ensure that canadian produced music and television doesn't get "bid out" on the airwaves by american content.
Everyone says that Cable TV killed territorial wrestling, but I for one, who was in a "wrestling starved" area only being served by Mid South wrestling liked being able to see what was going on in Georgia, CWA, CWF, AWA, World Class--stuff I had only read about in wrestling magazines. Like a kid who only heard about punk rock in Rolling Stone magazine because all the radio stations in my area played country, I was curious, and once I found out, I wanted more. and there's lots of people like us. I only had my parents to thank for getting us cable TV because of it, we had the Score network (a secondary sports outlet in 1988 to ESPN) and I became a big fan of Memphis wrestling--I thought it was exciting! My high school friend who was a fellow wrestling fan was the biggest AWA fan in Oklahoma, thanks to ESPN. He actually went so far as to call AWA office to see if they could come to Oklahoma--I told him how the territorial system worked, they won't come as far south as Nebraska, but somehow he got a hold of a promoter who said he was interested. But you see, that's where it starts. Cable TV allowed people in different parts of the country to have their eyes opened to new things they might end up liking. You can't just assume that people in one territory are only going to like one kind of wrestling, just like you can't assume everyone in Oklahoma has to like country music. What if they might enjoy Punk Rock, if they never experienced it before? Which, by the way, we were one of the first areas to get MTV, and my eyes became open to a wider variety of music that I never experienced before, but that's another story. Variety never hurt anyone, and I'm sorry that it killed territorial wrestling, and if there was another way that it wouldn't have, I would welcome it, but I guess that was the price that had to be paid.
I know you posted this 2 years ago but this is exactly why wrestling right now is on the up wjth ratings and views because there is a whole bunch of young people watching it on tiktok and watching multiple programs not just WWE.
Promoters refusing to invest money into their businesses is what caused them to die. Most promoters took all the money that the company made and kept it for themselves rather than investing it back into their own company. That’s why Vince really won because he invested all his money into his company. That investment is what allowed Vince to invade every territory and take all there talent and run shows in all their towns. Allowing Vince’s company to take over the Wrestling World.
If you think about it,Wrestlemania was the original "All In" since Vince pretty much put everything into that event right down to his own home.WM fails and who knows how history changes.
@@bull705 When the WWE/WWF ran Madison Square Garden they never broke even. The cost of the venue is just that high. They weren't worried about that because it brought automatic ppv customers and tv ratings.
The only thing I’ll blame on Vince was that PPV BS he pulled on the NWA.Verne was stiffing the wrestlers & didn’t promote as much as he should have.Jesse Ventura speaks on this.The NWA killed Florida,UWF & Central States.Wrestling is staged so as a wrestler you have to ask yourself,Do I want to make $50-$75 a night not 7 days a week most places being a mid to upper carder or do I want to make $150-$200 a night rarely ever winning & having my travel & hotel taken care of? And working every night.Think about the movie Pulp Fiction & the Pride Speech given to Bruce Willis.Unless you were Dundee or Lawler in Memphis you got paid crap.Fritz was a greedy pos too.Gary Hart talks about him in his book & Cornette does too on getting crap paydays on big $$$$$ making cards.Don Owens I heard was fair though
Crockett should have hung up on Vince when he was looking to sell the TBS timeslots or bought GCW before Vince did. Vince needed the money pretty badly then. This in conjunction with Hogan staying in AWA would have kept Vince in check.
Yeah. Crockett should've never brought the timeslot. Ted Turner was about to give it to Bill Watts' UWF and NWA would'nt suffered from it because they still made plenty of coverage. Just sit back and let Vince contiue to lose money because Vince McMahon never admits his own failures just like when he threaten the cable companies to not air Starrcade which costed NWA/WCW millions. What if the cable companies told Vince to fuck off and never aired his PPVs again? Seems that much Vince's successes was based on sheer dumb luck instead his "amazing" business genius.
Adding to the fact that Crockett bought UWF and CWF, that was a dozen nails in their coffin. The only thing UWF had to offer was syndication and that was worthless. Dusty had raided all of the talent in CWF when he started booking for JCP. The top UWF talent went to Vince.
Anthony Thompson NWA should've focused on getting the top talent instead of buying the whole territory because the oil crisis left the UWF area virtually dead.
@MemphoWrasslin1 I don't know, I was about 13 in the Northeast back then. We didn't get Crockett until 85. The WWF back then was crossing into mainstream back then getting national coverage to an audience unfamiliar to them at the time.
The AWA should have pushed their young talent, when they had it, especially Hogan. And let' s remember Flair, Steamboat, Patera, et all started there but didn't stay. They kept recycling Crusher and Mad Dog forever. They may have been great in 1969, but by 1985 could barely get around the ring anymore. Verne should have brought in a booker other than himself. As he was seldom at his own shows and didn't know who was really "over". They should have shot more angles like a southern promotion. Only without making it completely ridiculous like Memphis.
Stan Hanson quit AWA because Japan was a better environment for his style. Curt Henning and Scott Hall could of been a bigger stars but damn that old man ref for ruining matches. Bronco the ref I hate you! Blind as a bat and messed up the finishes. AWA had a good tags with Midnight Rockers, Original Midnight Express, Enis & Bloom, etc they could of done Memphis style feuds with them. AWA could of done more with the ESPN contract....Larry Nelson was the only thing keeping it entertaining but they replaced him with Eric Bischoof.
Verne couldn't face the reality that his style of wrestling/storytelling was outdated plus him not trusting the young guys to carry the company didn't help either. In short he shot himself in the foot by not adapting to the changing times.
16:08 Documents Vince's series of moves that led to him dominating the industry. Incredible Even with selling WTBS time slot to JCP, they still wound up shooting themselves in the foot with the absorption of Florida, Central States and MidSouth/UWF while those territories were dying. By the time they were able to get right, JCP had to sell to Turner, which in theory was a great idea, but wound up leading to another set of problems
Honestly, I think the territories were slowly killing themselves before Vince took over. Salaries were intentionally depressed because there was no direct competition, the promoters were getting old and becoming out of date, and most of the territories were already struggling financially before Vince started expanding.
That’s the thing, if you listen to enough stories from Jim, he kind of paints a picture of a barely sustainable business model that was living past its prime. Crooked promoters and owners seem to be the norm, the late 70s started bringing in hard drugs that would fuck up a lot of guys, cable tv money and ratings was rising as a prize to be chased after over house shows, wrestlers were talking more.. oh and Bruiser gets stabbed.
@@johansmallberries9874 It really does feel like a national promotion was inevitable, and instead of fighting it, the NWA should’ve consolidated all its small regional territories into larger regional territories lead by different promoters/owners.
@@zacharylewis2802 There's no way all those old territory owners could have come together like that. They tried uniting against Vince a couple times and failed. It's the difference between the old school carny mentality and Vince's new corporate mentality.
Essentially the day of the territories was ending anyway. If Vince McMahon hadn't gone national someone else would have and if McMahon hadn't broken kayfabe someone else would have. McMahon also saw and recognized how white hot Hogan was and seized the momentum when he did.
The short answer....NOTHING, Not a damn thing. Vince had National exposure first with USA on cable and then with NBC with Saturday Night's Main Event. The hard truth is that in the 80's Vince understood how to market the entire company while the territories we're still trying to market to their local town.
Crockett shouldn’t have bought the TBS spot from Vince. Without that funding, it becomes a lot harder for Vince to put on WM1, and wouldn’t have been to the scale that it was. No WM1, Vince loses future leverage over PPV companies and can’t influence whether they carry Starrcade.
Verne: make sure Hogan and his merch juggernaut go nowhere. Fritz: order David to get his stomach pains thoroughly checked. Crockett: don't spend like crazy on jets and office space.
Crockett: Also, stay in your territory. Don’t book shows in places like LA, or in the North East in WWF territory….Or Hawaii! Having that plane was a really bad idea.
Me too-I enjoyed watching the various regional promotions growing up. We had in Atlanta ‘Superstars of Wrestling’ at 8 pm on Saturdays which would have segments from different territories like MidSouth/UWF, Memphis, AWA, WWF, WCCW. Etc. Of course that was preceded by WCW/NWA on TBS from 6 to 8.
Jim cornette always tries to downplay Dallas and exalt Mid-South which had nowhere near the crowd or the TV that Dallas had not to mention that wccw was the first to go worldwide with TV
@@WZ912 a little known fact the biggest crowd Mid south had 20000 in the New Orleans Superdome had Kerry Von Erich vs Ric flair as the main event WCCW 45000 plus at Texas stadium with several 20 22 thousand plus events until at least 85
@danielmoore2320 Puh-lease. The biggest Superdome crowds were Junkyard Dog vs. Michael Hayes in 1980 and Rock and Roll Express vs. Midnight Express in 1984, both drawing over 25K and possibly even over 30K. Compare that to Fritz's retirement match. Regardless, big shows alone don't keep a promotion in business. Compare the size of the buildings each promotion ran on a day-to-day basis. During the height of the Freebirds vs. Von Erichs feud, WCCW regularly turned away upwards of 5,000 people at spot shows. That's because Fritz was too set in his ways to adjust those shows in order to accommodate the interest created by the feud. Any other promoter would have found a way to bring the people in.
AWA had so much potential to be great. They should have built around Hogan, Curt Hening, Sgt. Slaughter, & The Road Warriors. They could have rode that gravy train for years.
If you look at it really closely there's still a miniscule territory system going on right now in 2021. Talent is traveling to various small companies that are scattered around underneath the E, AEW, ROH & Impact. It's basically just called the indies 2day, but, it's actually a very small version of the past territory system. Also, it's still where some stars of 2morrow are trying to make way up from, but, 2day's style is the main reason most will never be really huge.
If ESPN really cared about wrestling in the 80's and were equipped to go all in, the AWA COULD HAVE been a long term force. If ESPN back then had the resources to really pump money into the AWA. And basically brand the AWA as THEIR wrestling company, it could have been the long term #3 company. And to beef up that roster, strengthen the bond with Memphis. If Jarrett and Gagne could come up with a great way to do it, flat out merge somehow. But even if they didn't merge flat out, FOR SURE strengthen that bond. When stars got tired of WWF or JCP/WCW, they would KNOW a revamped AWA with ESPN behind them would be a great opportunity. HELL with the way WCW was running in the early 90's, maybe the AWA could have been at a point where they became NUMBER 2 while WCW was struggling house show-vision wise. We all know the juggernaut ESPN became. If the AWA was along for that ride, the wrestling world could have been a totally different place!
May not be a big fan of his but AWA teased Hogan winning from Bockwinkle. Then he jumped ship to WWF. The rest there is history. AWA couldn’t hold onto its stars.
@@cyrussnow6060 Don't believe what Molester Lawler says. Why the hell would Verne pay Lawler? It was a joint show, and Lawler was one of the promoters. Also, how the hell can you pay someone when there isn't any money? Lawler was an awful champion, that couldn't even draw consistently in his own territory after 1987.
@@cyrussnow6060 Verne is also widely considered one of the best payoff guys of his time. Nick Bockwinkel made just as much as the NWA Champion and barely worked half the dates. Many others have said the same. The problem is people like you have no real knowledge about wrestling history...you just parrot what you hear in shoot interviews.
With the way that media is consumed these days, theres no way the territories could have ever survived. The business model just couldn't work. I could see JCP still around if their PPVs hadn't been screwed with, but thats it.
If they had been smarter they might have survived into the 90's before either merging into WWF, WCW or another wrestling promotion entirely. Or they might have been purchased by other media companies or billionaires with a love for wrestling.
The territory system depended on several things: 1) fans not being smart to the business. The Montreal Screwjob killed that. 2) Each territory’s boundaries were respected by the other promoters. Vince’s strategy in 84 was to destroy that, both in terms of raiding talent and ... 3) Fans in a territory could only see that particular promotion. Cable TV made that impossible.
To be fair to Vince and in honor of the Tunneys, their deal held up the longest because the Tunneys did not go back on their word. Paul Boesch was supposed to put in a new ticket office in Houston and help promote shows. He did neither and then he pocketed the entire gate of his tribute show. Bruce ran opposition in Calgary. You can say Vince was just looking for a reason but in each case these promoters were helpful enough to provide one. Except the Tunneys.
No, he did. He agreed to pay several companies to run in their area. Made the deal. Then he buys their TV time slot out from under them and just refused to pay. That's screwing people.
nothing, if Vince Jr hadn't done it someone eventually would've came along said I'm not doing this territorial bullshit. i think it's good that someone who was atleast successful did it, it could've been Ted Turner.
+maxx dahl Barnett didn't have New York though, Vince Sr then would've won that battle because he could've got more talent in New York because it's a bigger market.
Vince had a great start in the beginning of the nation wide WWF as far as good wrestling goes , after a while ,not as great but still good up to the attitude era when in it`s own way matched the first years ..Did great wrestling with it and for a few years later.Problem is now the product is crap. Vince doesn`t even want to call it wrestling and there is no real competition against Vince. Vince was successful and financially still is but he eventually ruined the wrestling quality of his own product.So in hinesight , was it best for Vince to have taken over wrestling?
Anyone else who would've done it would respect actual sports-like wrestling. Not Vince with his cartoony, sports entertainment bullshit. Imagine if Crockett won the national war and NWA was the top promotion and not the WWF.
Barnett had an epic crap ton of TV connections, and had his hand in Chicago, Indiana, Ohio, Atlanta. AND vince sr had no interest in going national. Against Barnett, Sr. would have had no real chance.
Verne padded his pocket & low paid his wrestlers causing them to leave then got mad when the wrestlers & announcers left. Kansas City couldn’t even support their NHL or NBA teams let alone wrestling & the pay there was the drizzling shits
Had to watch twice because I missed most of what Corny said because I was trying to work out who all the wrestlers are (on my phone) only got about half lol
I'm sure just before you started watching wrestling, you would either had All Star wrestling from Vancouver (BCTV), Stampede wrestling from Calgary and west (on Tv in west), Maple Leaf wrestling from Toronto (CHCH) and Ontario (OTTAWA CJOH), Lutte Internationale from Montreal (CFCF AND TVA) and Quebec, Atlantic Grand Prix from Halifax and Atlantic Canada, AWA from Minnesota was on Winnipeg tv CKND and Global tv in Ontario, and maybe WWF was on cable tv in Quebec from Plattsburgh. Unsure if Northland wrestling from northern Ontario had tv...maybe in North Bay.
Would wrestling be in a better place today if Vince had never existed? Sounds like a plot for a movie. Jim Crockett sends ric flair back in time to murder Vinces mother. He failed. Then Crockett sent dusty Rhodes back to strike at Vince when he was still a young boy. Kevin Dunn sent back hulk Hogan as a protector for Vince. It's a question of which one will reach him first. (Dusty puts a mirror in Hogans room and hulk gets distracted by his own image and stands flexing for 2 days while dusty kills young Vince. The end)
Crockett going out of business had nothing to do with McMahon. He was spending the money before he made it. He just assumed he'd make a lot of money in syndication and PPV. Then when that money never materialized, he was screwed.
@@Rjensen2 World Class and the AWA tried working together to unify their titles and yes it didn't go well But by then both promotions were running on fumes. Would a full merger a couple of years earlier worked? Who knows
They should have all abandoned their national or world names, admitted to being regional territories, and combined together in a tighter actual federation instead of the loose knit confederation they had been.
Crocket should have only bought the TN territories along with Southeast Championship, Florida and GA. UWF and Global should have combined to take TX , LA, AK etc. AWA should have taken St Louis, the IWA and Detroit. Finally Vancouver, Stampede and Pacific NW should have combined & finally Funks should have combined with the CA territories. That would have been cheaper tour dates & grabbed key cable channels in those areas & you would have had 4 NWA territories with AWA having the MidWest & maybe convince them to come back to NWA.
Vince Sr essentially. Vince Jr was already there working for a decade, got the sweetheart deal to buy he promotion, got booking fees from Japan a he got a million to get off TBS in 84.
They should've taken out McMahon by any means necessary number 1. Number two the NWA should've banded together and elect a real leader. Bottom line this situation could've been solved. Business is business
True. This is the fault of the NWA and it's promoters (all involved). I don't believe that they trusted or respected one another enough to work together. I doubt if any of them had the humility or common sense enough to work with one another.
The territory system/NWA was not going to survive the expansion of cable TV. The only thing that could have been different was if a different territory came out on top. Los Angeles wasn’t going to accept southern rasslin, so it was ripe for Vince’s cartoonish style. What cable tv did was destroy each territory’s monopoly on their particular audience. Suddenly the fans in a particular territory could see a second or third style. I grew up in New Orleans and my intro to pro wrestling was watching Mid South. They had the toughest of the tough guys battling it out. 4PM Saturday afternoon on 26, right after reruns of Lou Ferrigno on the Incredible Hulk at 3. A couple years later, World Class gets a syndication deal on local tv on Sunday night, right when the Von Erich’s and the Freebirds was hot. Then TBS gets onto the cable lineup and there’s Gordon Solie calling matches featuring Tommy WildFire Rich. And when Bill Watts got on TBS it felt like a victory for the home team. The rest of the country was going to be let in on our little secret down here in Louisiana, that we always had the best wrestling. A couple years later, Vince gets a Saturday morning cartoon. All this to mean that there was no monopoly anymore for the average territory fan. The territories now had to compete to keep their home fans happy; and with any competition some lose.
This is just one mark's opinion, that has been watching for almost 35 years. I don't get the buying of the St. Louis & Kansas City territories. They were dead when Crockett bought them. As for Mid South, I know they still had talent & an audience....that tv was still going well. It was just the economy and lack of live show attendance that was killing them. I'm assuming Crockett bought the territory when he did, to beat Vince to the punch. To me.....and this is just my opinion.....would it not have been smarter to not buy Central States Wrestling & St. Louis Wrestling Club at all and then simply wait to acquire talent from Mid South/UWF as they became available? Just stick with the Mid Atlantic, Georgia & Florida territories, as far north as Maryland....and as far south as Florida. Then from the Atlantic coast as far west as Tennessee. I mean hell....with Ron Fuller's Continental Championship Wrestling in decline, that would have been a wise territory to buy over Central States, St. Louis & Mid South. Then Crockett could have pushed into middle Tennessee into Nashville and into Alabama. They were already right next to Continental. Hell....that was a major part of Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling territory. They could have eventually established a working relationship with Jarrett & Lawler's Memphis territory that Vince & the WWF would eventually have. Just my opinion.
David S.: NWA JCP MidAtlantic had already expanded from its traditional base of Maryland, Virginia, and The Carolinas into Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia by about 1980 or 1981 or so. In addition to co promoted Maple Leaf Wrestling shows with The WWWF in Toronto. NWA GCW expanded roundabout 1982 into Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. Moreover, years later Horseman Arn Anderson had a Homecoming moment in a Pensacola Great American Bash co promoted with talent provided by Ron Fuller's NWA Southeastern. The first two expansive pushes I spoke of preceded Vince's power grab by two to four years.🤔B.W.
Fair enough. Didn't mean to step on your toes. I just remember it especially via The Aptermags with some Companies and via The Television Airwaves with others. This grand Sport's History is clearly worth studious and loving preservation and remembrance. And via his ambition Vince destroyed much of that and altered it to an unmalleable and unrecognizable form.🤔🤷♂️B.W.
D.S.: Not mine either. And I am impressed by you as an obvious Pro Wrestling Historian. I send my apology to you as well. What's the moment where you knew it would be worth it to be a fan? I have two. And both happened in Alabama.😎B.W.
i heard it costs 60k just to start up a private jet. buying up promotions wasn't as bad when you consider the tv he was getting. neither were all that wise, but the jet cost more long term. tv would have been handy to have if they didn't go under, also nothing stopping vince from going in and cherry picking.
perhaps, but not a guarantee. i'm not sure how the tv was structured in those places, he likely got everything in one swoop, which at the time seemed like he got it for a song and a ham sandwich. don't forget he planned on running those towns too, so having a ready in place advance team is no small luxury.
Vince did it to a shit ton of companies, mainly the AWA, would snatch up the tv right out from under them and he didn't buy them out. No small luxury but a jet for crockett would have been nothing and a smart idea for going national if that's ALL he bought.
What The Territories Could Have Done Differently to Survive? The answer is, kill national cable television, and then the internet. The territory system was doomed, even if the WWE failed, the minute national cable televison became a thing as it was only a matter of time before someone decided to take their business national.
The only way to stop Vince would have been to do what he did better than he did it. That was hard because Vince works all hours and risks everything without blinking.
Agreed, and they had the option to get an early lead to a tv foothold with TBS in Atlanta. Plenty of promoters and owners in the late 70s/early 80s where neck and neck with McMahon, he just made his own advantages and left them in the dust. And he created Hulkamania. And I put all that 80s marketing surge under Hulkamania. The cartoon, the ice cream, the toys, the glossy magazines..
Truthfully there really was no way the Territories could've survived, and their demise wasn't because of Vince McMahon. As time went on in the 60s into the 70s into the 80s all the Territories had become more and more dependent on Television, more specifically their local network shows. Here in the Northwest, just like in Dallas, Memphis, and all the others, everything major was done on their show on Saturday night on channel 12 at the Portland Sports Arena, titles were no longer traded in Eugene and Oregon City and Bend, while when a wrestlers heat in one Territory cooled they could move to another Territory and it was like a fresh start or the homecoming of a Legend. But then the 80s came and with it the explosion of CableTV, and local TV couldn't compete with USA Network, ESPN, and WTBS, and even those few Territories that did try to jump onto Cable had their problems as the promoters, entrenched as they were in their Territorial mindsets, couldn't understand that promoting shows on a national level required a whole different way of thinking, while the wrestlers they used, the wrestlers that moved in from other Territories couldn't renew their heat as the fans saw them in those other Territories. It wasn't Vince McMahons fault that the Territories collapsed, he just took advantage of it happening
Ferret, you hit the nail on the head............. i think Vince hastened what happened but as you note it was the superstations, specialty channels, etc that had the huge impact in the 1980s.... i think the non-WWE promo's needed to cooperate fully at that time and they did but then egos got in the way..... another thing was that the old NWA promoters (including Vince Sr.) did so much on good faith and people's word being true, but Vince Jr. just steamrolled that... lastly, Vince seemed willing to lost money today to make much more money down the line. not exactly sure how he was able to do that.
For the old Portland territory to survive, I think that if Don Owen were to allow Billy Jack Haynes to buy in it might have helped them. Maybe then Billy would have not played dirty pool with the commission. Plus it would have eased Billy into promoting.
@@thecoasties1602 while Billy could have or would have screwed things up but much like Jarrett & Lawler in Tennessee Billy & Don Owen could have had a lot of success locally in the PNW. Much like when Don & Dutch Savage were partners. Or Wally Karbo & Verne Gagne in the AWA. You have the 1 person taking care of the money & 1 person taking care of the wrestling part.
I may be a mark but that is what I like about AEW/NJPW/Impact reminds me of when NWA should send out the champ the wrestle the territory champs. I was a PNWPW mark and loved it when the Big boys came through.
IT was apparent WWF and JCP could stand on their own two feet once Vince starting really ramping up his expansion. When it came to the other territories, I think some mergers needed to happen. IF they wanted to have the type of company that would entice big name stars to join up IF they left WWF or JCP for some reason. So for example AWA-Memphis could have merged. They already worked together as it was. The AWA World Champ for years defended in Memphis. Lawler would come up to AWA for big events. The Memphis titles had AWA prefixes on them. AWA also had ESPN in the mid 80's. They should have strengthened that bond even more. In a perfect world, they do that BEFORE Savage left for the WWF. BECAUSE right under Verne's nose in Memphis was THE GUY most equipped between AWA and Memphis to be World Champ in a revamped AWA! Savage had the goods to match up against Hogan and Flair in terms of IT FACTOR! Plus Flair and Savage were the top two total packages in the industry at one point in the 80's. WCCW-Mid South should have merged for similar reasons. PLUS they were in the same area of the country basically. When it came to some of the other territories, some of them would have died off unfortunately. The good news COULD HAVE BEEN four major companies that had national cable TV AND could at least offer the boys six figure salaries HOPEFULLY. Maybe not the money WWF or JCP could offer their top guys. BUT still enough money and on a big enough stage to do their thing there. They wouldn't have to live on a prayer and HOPE WWF or JCP would be interested.
I agree 100%. JCP was big in the Carolinas, Atlanta, some of Virginia, while major cities like Chicago, Baltimore & Philadelphia were neutral & big sports cities. WWF/WWE was never huge in the South. Even the AWA if they could of co exist with Memphis that would of been big because no all places were big on the WWE,/WWF or JCP
Hrm, so you'd have, possibly, the WWF ruling the BOS-WASH corridor and the West Coast; the merged AWA running the Pains to Ohio Valley; JCP running DC to ATL; and Mid-South along the Gulf Coast and Texas.
@@andrejg4136 Absolutely!! All four companies would have cable TV and syndication nationwide. BUT all four companies would have their prime areas where they were dominant in terms of the house show market. The other territories would die off. BUT those stars would have two great options with the AWA-Memphis merger and Mid-South-WCCW merger. If they could have started that BEFORE Savage left for the WWF, Macho would have been the guy to build the new AWA around. With the other merger, Kerry or Dibiase would be my flagship guy. Just think it would have been a great move pool their talent and money to create two super companies to counter WWF and JCP! And it wouldn't be about overtaking those companies. But more about being a successful and viable company around for the long term.
it would have made cents but they needed dollars I do find it funny they were told to look for the guys in black cowboy hats if there was trouble. look for black cowboy hats...... in texas. it wouldn't be JR back then. but that's about the only person you could rule out.
The Von Erichs brothers not dying for Fritz Von Erich. Hulk Hogan stays in the Mid-West for Verne Gagne. Expanding no further west then Chicago for the Crocketts.
All those are HUGE game changers. Crockett was the MOST AVOIDABLE one u named. The plan should have been stay between Baltimore and Chicago. Which give you PLENTY of major cities along the SoutEast Coast all the way to the Windy City. From there, they had TBS. Which was growing steadily across the country in the 80's. Their penetration was growing rapidly. Where they DROPPED THE BALL was with their money management. They should have been reinvesting BIG TIME in terms of marketing and production. They had a prime Flair as their flagship star. Flair in the 80's could have been JUST AS BIG as Hogan but in a different way! What Hogan was for kids and young teens, Flair could have been just as iconic mainstream wise for the 18 and up folks. We see how big time Flair is now pop culture wise! Due to social media, WWE Network, etc. Same thing could have happened in the 80's IF JCP had the proper machine to push a cool and edgy product!
The Von Erichs stopped drawing long before they started dying. The company was all but dead before Mike even died. Look at the Texas Stadium show in 1987, right after Mike died. The stadium was mostly empty, even worse than the Fritz retirement show in 1982 which only drew around 8,000.
Crockett should have never purchased the UWF outright just purchase 51% which is the controlling interest. Keep UWF as itself letting Watts still run it put some better matches on TBS for the fans. Do away with NWA World Wide & Pro switching it to UWF TV. Every couple months trade talent & do the house shows & pay per views jointly. Use Florida & Central States & Texas as development territories maybe have the jobbers face one another keep the big stars for both territories.
All they were buying is tv time. If you wait a few months watts would have just closed shop and Crockett just gets the guys they wanted. JR, what a salesman.
He never even paid 51% ultimately, so what the hell are you talking about? Do you know, or are you just repeating what you hear in other interviews? You don't actually think he wrote a $4 million check to Watts in 1987, do you? 🤣🤣🤣
@@moses0686 No, JR is a lying sack of shit. That's the only reason the deal was done. Ross lied to Crockett and said Vince was close to buying it. In actuality, Watts got laughed off the phone, even when Watts threatened McMahon with an anti-trust suit.
I wonder whether working to make Pro Wrestling USA work and run more and more shows would have helped? Running those Big Shows with Wrestlers from The NWA + AWA + UWF + Memphis + World Class, you could have folled Stadiums with those shows. I also have to ask, what if Verne Gagne makes Hulk Hogan The AWA World Heavyweight Champion and he defends The AWA World Heavyweight Title at NJPW Shows and AJPW Shows? Could we have gotten The NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs. AWA World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan? Could we have gotten UWF Champion Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Hulk or Ric Flair?
I don’t know, being born in ‘99 it just seems odd to have a bunch of segregated promotions, each with their own top guy. I guess I don’t really get how it worked. How could you be a star if you’re only a star in a certain area?
Each of the areas were isolated to a point. There was only local t.v., no internet, and only wrestling magazines that reported what was going on in other promotions. Heck, you even had to call and pay "long distance" charges if you called outside your local area which helped with the "isolation"
It was harder to be a celebrity before the Internet. Being on TV, even local TV, was a big deal. Being in a magazine was a big deal. Some people got big nationally by moving around and being an attraction everywhere. Traveling guys didn't wear out their welcome and got national exposure by being so many places, and the homesteading local guys got fresh opponents and the rub from traveling stars.
JCP had EVERYTHING IT TOOK to be the long term alternative to the WWF. WITHOUT having to sell to WCW. They just mismanaged their money. And didn't reinvest into marketing and production. When u have Flair and the Horsemen, Dusty, Magnum, LOD, RnR, Nikita, Sting, Luger, Midnights and Corny, etc. between 1985-1988, you had THE ROSTER to go to war with. If u gave a Flair a great marketing machine to cater to his strengths AND an edgy adult oriented product, he becomes JUST AS HUGE as Hogan. But in a different way! U needed great star power to be a viable national promotion. And from there, u needed a tremendous marketing and production package to enhance it. NO REASON Dusty couldn't market Skoal Tobacco. Or Magnum market Harley Davidson. NO REASON Flair couldn't market luxury watches and champagne. NO REASON the LOD couldn't have appeared in action movies. Ricky and Robert shold have been marketed like wrestling's version of Bo and Luke Duke. Cornette was just as hilarious and witty as Heenan.
Netflix would be smart to try and work out a deal with WWE to put some content on it. WWE needs to branch out, the network is only for the hardcore fan.
Which used-car salesmen are you referring to? Fritz, Verne, Watts, the Welches/Fullers, Graham were all former wrestlers and had great regional success. Crockett had also been a success in concerts, sports, etc. The issue with that was Jim trying to fight Vince by buying all the failing promotions. The difference was (1) Vince had the advantage of his dad being based in the media-rich NE and ftd in MSG and (2) he didn't look at it as a wrestling company. The saying that he wanted to be the Walt Disney of Wrestling wasn't a joke. The territories still ran as they had for decades and had no desire to be National the same way WWF was being built, other than maybe Crockett once he got on WTBS. They were happy with being Jack's/In N Out/White Castle instead of being McDonald's. It was the Reagan Decade as well. "Greed Is Good".
Jim and Brian are both wrong about Watts. He WENT to work for Turner. The kind of wrestling the people in the Carolinas , Fl, Ga, Va WV liked wasn’t Vince because he had such a cartoon show but I also think they would have rejected Watts after a while too because his style was too stiff. Also remember when Cowboy came in , he bullied the talent and his racially ignorant comment got him in trouble. He might could get by with that in Tulsa but not Atlanta where the population has so many blacks. He would have pissed Turner off like he did in 89.
Don't you love how Brian can talk about past event like he was actually there when it happened!! Those are the historians I like who actually does their research with being the total Brainiac lol
They all should have used there union to collectively invest in cable they were to set in there old school ways if they had cable Vince would have had nothing to offer talent that the wrestling promoters didn't already have
@Don Johnson Obama campaigned twice on redoing NAFTA but never lifted a finger because he didnt know how. Trump did it in year 3 and the new USMCA trade deal at $1.3 trillion is the largest in the history of earth........but hey, we should believe you, with your comment that sounds like your feelings are hurt. OK!!!
I grew up wit wwf early 90s in the uk so didnt really know much about the terrioty system till you tube but im lovin watchin the nwa. Mid south stuff now. Jesus saves
Vince may have won out eventually anyway, but Crockett could have held on for a while if he never tried to expand. Even when I was growing up in the early-mid 90's, WWF couldn't draw flies with shit near me. WCW could pull a few thousand for a useless house show on a Tuesday. Over-expanding caused the money problems, which led to Crockett selling to Turner. Then, the Bischoff era with the inflated contracts for limited dates brought it back temporarily; but, really that was putting the final nails in the coffin. WCW had plenty of talent at the end, but they all had creative control and didn't have to work when they didn't feel like it. And, of course, Shit Stain was booking by then, too. Long story short, Vince probably wins eventually but Crockett was the one who could have held out the longest IMO.
Buying UWF and giving Vince the million for TBS slot. Wouldn't have paid Vince SHIT. Vince would've sold it for pennies on the dollar. Iron Sheik breaks Hogans leg.
There should be a Netflix series about this, the end of the territory days.
That be so awesome bro
That or VICE since they're producing Dark Side of the Ring
It should begin with the rise of Hulkamania and the WWE under Vince in 1983 and then finish by around 2000, when the WWE buys out ECW and WCW.
@@ramonalejandrosuare i think it would have to start by showing how successful and promising each existing promotion was, showing how over hit really was in their region, so it's have to at least quickly go back to when TV really started to take off, then you can kind of fast track Otto the early 70s when Memphis took off cuz of Lawler n work it's way up mostly chronologically but with a little Tarantino in there to spice it up a little. were kind of past when it would've been been cuz so many people have died to tell their stories, like lanny poffo is gonna have to tell about how crazy it was to have macho on essentially local tv with icw, and only Kevin von erich and Michael Hayes can retell the Dallas days etc. but great idea, if watch that shit for sure!
@@BarsAnderson I think you could begin the story in the early 1980s when each territory was already formed and begin with Vince's rise to owner of the WWF. It's through this kind of a tycoon figure buying up market after market that you really see how the entire decline of the territories began and ended.
Another thing that hurt Crockett was Magnum having that car accident.
So why was it that they drew such huge business after?
A great video game would be where you can pick a territory and work its ratings, tv, tickets, and deals to conquer all others. Just a thought.
The new firepro wrestling game has a game mode like that. You create a promotion and slowly build it to compete with other promotions.
TEW 2020
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_of_Wrestling_II = "Legends of Wrestling II" video game (2002 - 2003) (Acclaim Entertainment)
@@tonyruby4467 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Pro_Wrestling_World = Fire Pro Wrestling World (2018)
@@tonyruby4467 - th-cam.com/video/oRrltumBm84/w-d-xo.html = #fpww #fireprowrestlingworld
Fire Pro (Wrestling World) video game = "Promoter Mode" (PC / Steam mode) = Ep 1 - "Creating My OWN Wrestling Company" (3 hrs. 51 mins.) = by: Pulse - (streamed live) on Mar 2, 2019
When I was a kid growing up in central canada saturday was "wrestling day" on TV.
At 10 AM we got AWA via a Minneapolis broadcaster broadcast by a local independent network.
At 12 PM we got WWF on the local CTV broadcaster.
At 2 PM we got Stampede on a different local independent network.
At 4 PM we got Crockett/WCW on TBS via cable.
We were spoiled for choice but there was something for everyone's wrestling taste.
Reminds me of a canadian version of my area. There were 3 local territories to my state, then I could watch a few more on TV.
Where I lived there were a couple of local feds that got onto late night rotations via public access too, one was broadcast at 1 in the morning on sunday and the other was on at midnight on tuesdays, they were the last broadcast programs of their respective days (the public access channel would go off air at 2 AM and come back at 7 AM the next morning).
What an amazing time for a wrestling fan.
What a time to be a wrestling fan
Just below you in Wisconsin it was 8pm-midnight
NWA
AWA
WWF
SNL , though we always switched to Benny Hill
Arn Anderson said on his podcast that he thinks Jim Crockett would still be in business if he hadn't bought the Kansas City and New Orleans territory
David Crockett said the exact same thing.
Flair as well
That was just one of several ways Crockett overextended himself. He should have just focused on what he had already. I think that, had he done so, Vince wouldn't have been able to blow Crockett out of there with dynamite!
Huh?
In the end, he didn't pay that much because of the bankruptcy. He didn't write Watts a check for $4 million in 1987. Anderson is full of shit, and would have no knowledge of the particulars behind the sales anyway.
There was no New Orleans territory, the UWF incorporated multiple states.
Thank God I lived in Miami during the 80's, got to see AWA, WCCW, UWF, NWA & WWF.
Damn, you got all the good shit! Wish those days would return.
Awesome, baby !!!!
Moved to Lauderdale in '85. We also got NWA Hollywood and Mexican Lucha Libre stuff on the Spanish stations.
I don't recall UWF, but Miami did have Memphis wrestling at 1:30p on Sundays.
Funny enough I don't remember seeing Memphis wrestling in Miami. Could be because I was watching the Dolphins play at that time usually.
would like to see clear picture of the territory map with wrestlers.
Late ass reply. But I just copied what you said "Territory Map With Wrestlers on Google and that thumbnail popped up.
I actually have a print of it in my room, it’s pretty cool
remember when ESPN was showing awa? shit was so dry you didn't know if it was current (90s) or stuff from 1968.
early 90's I think
I member it had baron von rashchke who looked like he was 65 in the ring. AWA had the Trooper as the top good guy. Jake Milliman as the underdog and the heels were mike enis and bloom who eventually became the beverly brothers in wwe.
I do that was a disaster to me all the top guys for the most part looked over the heel, I kept asking why is Greg or Verne Gangne always in high profile feuds that they shouldn't have been in at that point, and how come they continue to advertise that AWA blockbuster match that never aired?
80s. AWA went out of business in 1990.
yup, AWA on ESPN (and TSN in Canada) was gawd-awful. not sure why ESPN didn't know that. around the end, AWA had crowd of 200 in toronto........... it's too bad as i love the whole AWA 1970s/Verne Gagne feel
I genuinely don’t think the territories could’ve done much or anything to survive. Not to say it couldn’t be possible for some to have stuck around but more so the reality that none of the territory promoters would’ve been willing to do the things they needed to do to stick around. Vince actually attacking various territories certainly sped up their demise but I think it simply sped up the inevitable more than truly causing it. The territory promoters were stuck in the ways business ran in the past and for the most part too stubborn to adapt and/or embrace the ways the business evolved, which was the polar opposite of the way Vince operated. Vince consistently reinvested into the company and made moves for the future that resulted in higher revenues and multiple revenue streams to monetize which the territories didn’t do.
Vince was so much better in investing for the future over the current day it’s kinda wild to think of the things he did. For example, he would pay to be on television systems to give his show exposure and awareness and then when the show did well would come back to the network to get a better deal since they now had an established product they didn’t want to lose. The territories wouldn’t have been willing to take those risks. But he also built up revenue lines so much more than they did with merchandise, videos, PPV, etc. The territories were always focused solely on selling tickets to make money which set a ceiling that couldn’t survive McMahon. The only territory promoter who really thought to the future was Crockett - the others were just too stubborn to even consider making moves to grow their revenue base past ticket sales like McMahon did.
The territories survived and thrived when they did largely thanks to the business model they all operated under. Essentially every territory had free rein to be a monopoly of wrestling in their area and never had to truly compete against anybody. They were able to thrive because there was nobody to take their market share from them. Once an alternative emerged it was going to be tough to survive if you weren’t willing to adapt and none of them were. None of them had the resources, foresight, or willingness to do the things that would’ve given them a chance if were being realistic.
Okay, where's the link to that picture? I'd love to have that as it looks amazing.
Thanks! I'll keep an eye out when it releases. It looks pretty awesome.
I recall watching WCCW after school back in the 80's. Back when it was still pure
I remember the AWA having the over the top rope disqualified rule and always laughed at that
NWA did it as well. I always remember that’s how Road Warriors were robbed from winning tag titles from Tully and Arn.
@@colourfaze86 IIRC, NWA also had a no jump off the top rope rule as well. Also , The Sleeper and Pile Driver were banned in some areas.
Shouldnt laugh. Its back when professional wrestling had rules and structure, not the bullshit you see now
So you laughed at every single company in the U.S. besides the WWF as well?
@@Rjensen2 yes. Because they want the prestige of being what they aren't a sporting event.
Everytime I hear cornettes co host talk I picture matt striker
We still have the "CanCon" laws up here too, they were recently modified to be more restrictive by forcing TV and radio broadcasters to broadcast at least 60% canadian content (excluding news) per day.
The reason these laws are on the books is to ensure that canadian produced music and television doesn't get "bid out" on the airwaves by american content.
Hammerhead547 ctv and global would only show canadian content if they produced it otherwise
like the cfl, eh where you could only hace so many american s on the roster
Lots of episodes of Red Green Show to rerun. Keep your stick on the ice.
@@koDaffi
Last I checked Caomedy Network was still re-running Royal Canadian Air Farce too, there's 24 years of episodes there.
@@Hammerhead547 I forgot all about that 1. Gonna have to rewatch. Thank you
Everyone says that Cable TV killed territorial wrestling, but I for one, who was in a "wrestling starved" area only being served by Mid South wrestling liked being able to see what was going on in Georgia, CWA, CWF, AWA, World Class--stuff I had only read about in wrestling magazines. Like a kid who only heard about punk rock in Rolling Stone magazine because all the radio stations in my area played country, I was curious, and once I found out, I wanted more. and there's lots of people like us. I only had my parents to thank for getting us cable TV because of it, we had the Score network (a secondary sports outlet in 1988 to ESPN) and I became a big fan of Memphis wrestling--I thought it was exciting! My high school friend who was a fellow wrestling fan was the biggest AWA fan in Oklahoma, thanks to ESPN. He actually went so far as to call AWA office to see if they could come to Oklahoma--I told him how the territorial system worked, they won't come as far south as Nebraska, but somehow he got a hold of a promoter who said he was interested. But you see, that's where it starts. Cable TV allowed people in different parts of the country to have their eyes opened to new things they might end up liking. You can't just assume that people in one territory are only going to like one kind of wrestling, just like you can't assume everyone in Oklahoma has to like country music. What if they might enjoy Punk Rock, if they never experienced it before? Which, by the way, we were one of the first areas to get MTV, and my eyes became open to a wider variety of music that I never experienced before, but that's another story. Variety never hurt anyone, and I'm sorry that it killed territorial wrestling, and if there was another way that it wouldn't have, I would welcome it, but I guess that was the price that had to be paid.
I know you posted this 2 years ago but this is exactly why wrestling right now is on the up wjth ratings and views because there is a whole bunch of young people watching it on tiktok and watching multiple programs not just WWE.
Yeah and a few territories had it before Vince or Crockett, which tells me the problem was with what Vince was doing to harm them all.
Promoters refusing to invest money into their businesses is what caused them to die. Most promoters took all the money that the company made and kept it for themselves rather than investing it back into their own company. That’s why Vince really won because he invested all his money into his company. That investment is what allowed Vince to invade every territory and take all there talent and run shows in all their towns. Allowing Vince’s company to take over the Wrestling World.
If you think about it,Wrestlemania was the original "All In" since Vince pretty much put everything into that event right down to his own home.WM fails and who knows how history changes.
@@bull705 When the WWE/WWF ran Madison Square Garden they never broke even. The cost of the venue is just that high. They weren't worried about that because it brought automatic ppv customers and tv ratings.
Vince also had Hogan, NJPW loan, and the overlooked help of Jim Barnett. Barnett built the territories so he knew all the tv people across the US.
The only thing I’ll blame on Vince was that PPV BS he pulled on the NWA.Verne was stiffing the wrestlers & didn’t promote as much as he should have.Jesse Ventura speaks on this.The NWA killed Florida,UWF & Central States.Wrestling is staged so as a wrestler you have to ask yourself,Do I want to make $50-$75 a night not 7 days a week most places being a mid to upper carder or do I want to make $150-$200 a night rarely ever winning & having my travel & hotel taken care of? And working every night.Think about the movie Pulp Fiction & the Pride Speech given to Bruce Willis.Unless you were Dundee or Lawler in Memphis you got paid crap.Fritz was a greedy pos too.Gary Hart talks about him in his book & Cornette does too on getting crap paydays on big $$$$$ making cards.Don Owens I heard was fair though
where can I find that pic of the territories?
Where can I find a bigger version of the pic of all the different territories and wrestlers??
canadian content laws are very real and have never been repealed. honestly we need it to keep our own TV companies solvent sometimes
We need it so American Culture doesn't take ours over,as well.
@@johnnyslic As if there's even such a thing as Canadian Culture. If it isn't British, it's American in Canada.
Crockett should have hung up on Vince when he was looking to sell the TBS timeslots or bought GCW before Vince did. Vince needed the money pretty badly then. This in conjunction with Hogan staying in AWA would have kept Vince in check.
Yeah. Crockett should've never brought the timeslot. Ted Turner was about to give it to Bill Watts' UWF and NWA would'nt suffered from it because they still made plenty of coverage. Just sit back and let Vince contiue to lose money because Vince McMahon never admits his own failures just like when he threaten the cable companies to not air Starrcade which costed NWA/WCW millions. What if the cable companies told Vince to fuck off and never aired his PPVs again? Seems that much Vince's successes was based on sheer dumb luck instead his "amazing" business genius.
Adding to the fact that Crockett bought UWF and CWF, that was a dozen nails in their coffin. The only thing UWF had to offer was syndication and that was worthless. Dusty had raided all of the talent in CWF when he started booking for JCP. The top UWF talent went to Vince.
Anthony Thompson NWA should've focused on getting the top talent instead of buying the whole territory because the oil crisis left the UWF area virtually dead.
@MemphoWrasslin1 don't forget WWF branching out into the entertainment world Mr T, MTV, Saturday Night Main Event and such.
@MemphoWrasslin1 I don't know, I was about 13 in the Northeast back then.
We didn't get Crockett until 85. The WWF back then was crossing into mainstream back then getting national coverage to an audience unfamiliar to them at the time.
The AWA should have pushed their young talent, when they had it, especially Hogan. And let' s remember Flair, Steamboat, Patera, et all started there but didn't stay. They kept recycling Crusher and Mad Dog forever. They may have been great in 1969, but by 1985 could barely get around the ring anymore. Verne should have brought in a booker other than himself. As he was seldom at his own shows and didn't know who was really "over". They should have shot more angles like a southern promotion. Only without making it completely ridiculous like Memphis.
Memphis was the shit, but some of their only worked because lawler could make it work.
Stan Hanson quit AWA because Japan was a better environment for his style. Curt Henning and Scott Hall could of been a bigger stars but damn that old man ref for ruining matches. Bronco the ref I hate you! Blind as a bat and messed up the finishes. AWA had a good tags with Midnight Rockers, Original Midnight Express, Enis & Bloom, etc they could of done Memphis style feuds with them. AWA could of done more with the ESPN contract....Larry Nelson was the only thing keeping it entertaining but they replaced him with Eric Bischoof.
Verne couldn't face the reality that his style of wrestling/storytelling was outdated plus him not trusting the young guys to carry the company didn't help either. In short he shot himself in the foot by not adapting to the changing times.
They kind of did the same thing wcw did not pushing young talent
They pushed the old guys cause they were still drawing. Why shoot yourself in the foot and push someone who isn't established?
16:08 Documents Vince's series of moves that led to him dominating the industry. Incredible
Even with selling WTBS time slot to JCP, they still wound up shooting themselves in the foot with the absorption of Florida, Central States and MidSouth/UWF while those territories were dying. By the time they were able to get right, JCP had to sell to Turner, which in theory was a great idea, but wound up leading to another set of problems
Got uk cable in April 1990 which had...wccw, uswa, wcw, wwf, and some European stuff, prior to that it was only world of sport.
IM A JIM CORNETTE GUY!!!!
Honestly, I think the territories were slowly killing themselves before Vince took over. Salaries were intentionally depressed because there was no direct competition, the promoters were getting old and becoming out of date, and most of the territories were already struggling financially before Vince started expanding.
That’s the thing, if you listen to enough stories from Jim, he kind of paints a picture of a barely sustainable business model that was living past its prime. Crooked promoters and owners seem to be the norm, the late 70s started bringing in hard drugs that would fuck up a lot of guys, cable tv money and ratings was rising as a prize to be chased after over house shows, wrestlers were talking more.. oh and Bruiser gets stabbed.
@@johansmallberries9874 It really does feel like a national promotion was inevitable, and instead of fighting it, the NWA should’ve consolidated all its small regional territories into larger regional territories lead by different promoters/owners.
@@zacharylewis2802 There's no way all those old territory owners could have come together like that. They tried uniting against Vince a couple times and failed. It's the difference between the old school carny mentality and Vince's new corporate mentality.
Netflix is making a documentary on Vince's life hopefully they're able to cover all the aspects of the territories.
Oh, because I'm sure it'll be very accurate. 🙄
Jim explained why there is only one of the original territories left which is not WWE. Yes, is WWC.
Essentially the day of the territories was ending anyway. If Vince McMahon hadn't gone national someone else would have and if McMahon hadn't broken kayfabe someone else would have. McMahon also saw and recognized how white hot Hogan was and seized the momentum when he did.
The short answer....NOTHING, Not a damn thing. Vince had National exposure first with USA on cable and then with NBC with Saturday Night's Main Event. The hard truth is that in the 80's Vince understood how to market the entire company while the territories we're still trying to market to their local town.
Joe Blanchard was on USA before Vince
True. Vince out-promoted all of them and took risks while the territories didn’t wanna get out of their comfort zone
That’s kind of the point, they could have done something if they had the vision Vince did. They just didn’t.
If Jerry Jarrett had bought the AWA, things would have been very different.
was that in the works at some point?
Just like it was when he bought World Class instead? 🤣🤣🤣
Crockett shouldn’t have bought the TBS spot from Vince. Without that funding, it becomes a lot harder for Vince to put on WM1, and wouldn’t have been to the scale that it was. No WM1, Vince loses future leverage over PPV companies and can’t influence whether they carry Starrcade.
Verne: make sure Hogan and his merch juggernaut go nowhere.
Fritz: order David to get his stomach pains thoroughly checked.
Crockett: don't spend like crazy on jets and office space.
Crockett: Also, stay in your territory. Don’t book shows in places like LA, or in the North East in WWF territory….Or Hawaii! Having that plane was a really bad idea.
I miss the territory days of pro wrestling
Me too-I enjoyed watching the various regional promotions growing up. We had in Atlanta ‘Superstars of Wrestling’ at 8 pm on Saturdays which would have segments from different territories like MidSouth/UWF, Memphis, AWA, WWF, WCCW. Etc. Of course that was preceded by WCW/NWA on TBS from 6 to 8.
“The two biggest non wwe companies and Dallas” tell that to Michael hayes
DOOT DOOT DOOT
Jim cornette always tries to downplay Dallas and exalt Mid-South which had nowhere near the crowd or the TV that Dallas had not to mention that wccw was the first to go worldwide with TV
@@danielmoore2320 yes!
@@WZ912 a little known fact the biggest crowd Mid south had 20000 in the New Orleans Superdome had Kerry Von Erich vs Ric flair as the main event WCCW 45000 plus at Texas stadium with several 20 22 thousand plus events until at least 85
@danielmoore2320 Puh-lease. The biggest Superdome crowds were Junkyard Dog vs. Michael Hayes in 1980 and Rock and Roll Express vs. Midnight Express in 1984, both drawing over 25K and possibly even over 30K. Compare that to Fritz's retirement match. Regardless, big shows alone don't keep a promotion in business. Compare the size of the buildings each promotion ran on a day-to-day basis. During the height of the Freebirds vs. Von Erichs feud, WCCW regularly turned away upwards of 5,000 people at spot shows. That's because Fritz was too set in his ways to adjust those shows in order to accommodate the interest created by the feud. Any other promoter would have found a way to bring the people in.
AWA had so much potential to be great. They should have built around Hogan, Curt Hening, Sgt. Slaughter, & The Road Warriors. They could have rode that gravy train for years.
Right to 91
Vince poached all those wrestlers
I would love to see a wrestling version of the board game Risk. You would play as a promoter.
If you look at it really closely there's still a miniscule territory system going on right now in 2021. Talent is traveling to various small companies that are scattered around underneath the E, AEW, ROH & Impact. It's basically just called the indies 2day, but, it's actually a very small version of the past territory system. Also, it's still where some stars of 2morrow are trying to make way up from, but, 2day's style is the main reason most will never be really huge.
It isn't even close to the old territory system. It's just a bunch of indies all competing in the same markets.
@@zippymufo9765
??? No ???
It's still regional.
But some indies travel like when CHIKARA would go to Chicago or North Carolina.
If ESPN really cared about wrestling in the 80's and were equipped to go all in, the AWA COULD HAVE been a long term force. If ESPN back then had the resources to really pump money into the AWA. And basically brand the AWA as THEIR wrestling company, it could have been the long term #3 company. And to beef up that roster, strengthen the bond with Memphis. If Jarrett and Gagne could come up with a great way to do it, flat out merge somehow.
But even if they didn't merge flat out, FOR SURE strengthen that bond. When stars got tired of WWF or JCP/WCW, they would KNOW a revamped AWA with ESPN behind them would be a great opportunity. HELL with the way WCW was running in the early 90's, maybe the AWA could have been at a point where they became NUMBER 2 while WCW was struggling house show-vision wise. We all know the juggernaut ESPN became. If the AWA was along for that ride, the wrestling world could have been a totally different place!
May not be a big fan of his but AWA teased Hogan winning from Bockwinkle. Then he jumped ship to WWF. The rest there is history. AWA couldn’t hold onto its stars.
@@geocooley7282 Not to mention Verne’s less than reputable habit of screwing over business partners
Why in the hell would a fledgling cable company like ESPN put money into the AWA? Could they even afford it?
@@cyrussnow6060 Don't believe what Molester Lawler says. Why the hell would Verne pay Lawler? It was a joint show, and Lawler was one of the promoters.
Also, how the hell can you pay someone when there isn't any money? Lawler was an awful champion, that couldn't even draw consistently in his own territory after 1987.
@@cyrussnow6060 Verne is also widely considered one of the best payoff guys of his time. Nick Bockwinkel made just as much as the NWA Champion and barely worked half the dates. Many others have said the same. The problem is people like you have no real knowledge about wrestling history...you just parrot what you hear in shoot interviews.
With the way that media is consumed these days, theres no way the territories could have ever survived. The business model just couldn't work. I could see JCP still around if their PPVs hadn't been screwed with, but thats it.
that's a good point. if jcp made it over one hurdle, there's nothing to guarantee they would have made it over all the other hurdles in its path.
If they had been smarter they might have survived into the 90's before either merging into WWF, WCW or another wrestling promotion entirely. Or they might have been purchased by other media companies or billionaires with a love for wrestling.
The territory system depended on several things:
1) fans not being smart to the business.
The Montreal Screwjob killed that.
2) Each territory’s boundaries were respected by the other promoters. Vince’s strategy in 84 was to destroy that, both in terms of raiding talent and ...
3) Fans in a territory could only see that particular promotion. Cable TV made that impossible.
Wrestling back in the territory days was great stuff that was real wrestling
To be fair to Vince and in honor of the Tunneys, their deal held up the longest because the Tunneys did not go back on their word. Paul Boesch was supposed to put in a new ticket office in Houston and help promote shows. He did neither and then he pocketed the entire gate of his tribute show. Bruce ran opposition in Calgary. You can say Vince was just looking for a reason but in each case these promoters were helpful enough to provide one. Except the Tunneys.
Vince didn’t screw the territories. The territories screwed the territories.
No, he did. He agreed to pay several companies to run in their area. Made the deal. Then he buys their TV time slot out from under them and just refused to pay. That's screwing people.
The Tunney deal worked well because the Toronto market was right next to the main WWF territory
nothing, if Vince Jr hadn't done it someone eventually would've came along said I'm not doing this territorial bullshit. i think it's good that someone who was atleast successful did it, it could've been Ted Turner.
Vince is lucky Jim Barnett didn't do it. Barnett had the idea in the mid 70's, but never acted upon it and he's one of the few who could have.
+maxx dahl Barnett didn't have New York though, Vince Sr then would've won that battle because he could've got more talent in New York because it's a bigger market.
Vince had a great start in the beginning of the nation wide WWF as far as good wrestling goes , after a while ,not as great but still good up to the attitude era when in it`s own way matched the first years ..Did great wrestling with it and for a few years later.Problem is now the product is crap. Vince doesn`t even want to call it wrestling and there is no real competition against Vince.
Vince was successful and financially still is but he eventually ruined the wrestling quality of his own product.So in hinesight , was it best for Vince to have taken over wrestling?
Anyone else who would've done it would respect actual sports-like wrestling. Not Vince with his cartoony, sports entertainment bullshit. Imagine if Crockett won the national war and NWA was the top promotion and not the WWF.
Barnett had an epic crap ton of TV connections, and had his hand in Chicago, Indiana, Ohio, Atlanta. AND vince sr had no interest in going national. Against Barnett, Sr. would have had no real chance.
I need that map of the territories.
That map is in the comic book known as "The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling", available on Amazon in either paperback or digital form.
Verne padded his pocket & low paid his wrestlers causing them to leave then got mad when the wrestlers & announcers left. Kansas City couldn’t even support their NHL or NBA teams let alone wrestling & the pay there was the drizzling shits
Had to watch twice because I missed most of what Corny said because I was trying to work out who all the wrestlers are (on my phone) only got about half lol
I wish I could have a better look at the thumbnail picture with all the different territories!
I live in Canada, during the mid 80s I didnt know anything besides the wwf. Had know idea anything else existed. WWF was the onything on tv.
I'm sure just before you started watching wrestling, you would either had All Star wrestling from Vancouver (BCTV), Stampede wrestling from Calgary and west (on Tv in west), Maple Leaf wrestling from Toronto (CHCH) and Ontario (OTTAWA CJOH), Lutte Internationale from Montreal (CFCF AND TVA) and Quebec, Atlantic Grand Prix from Halifax and Atlantic Canada, AWA from Minnesota was on Winnipeg tv CKND and Global tv in Ontario, and maybe WWF was on cable tv in Quebec from Plattsburgh. Unsure if Northland wrestling from northern Ontario had tv...maybe in North Bay.
Would wrestling be in a better place today if Vince had never existed? Sounds like a plot for a movie. Jim Crockett sends ric flair back in time to murder Vinces mother. He failed. Then Crockett sent dusty Rhodes back to strike at Vince when he was still a young boy. Kevin Dunn sent back hulk Hogan as a protector for Vince. It's a question of which one will reach him first. (Dusty puts a mirror in Hogans room and hulk gets distracted by his own image and stands flexing for 2 days while dusty kills young Vince. The end)
Crockett going out of business had nothing to do with McMahon. He was spending the money before he made it. He just assumed he'd make a lot of money in syndication and PPV. Then when that money never materialized, he was screwed.
They should have got together and got rid of Vince.
If Vince hadn't gone national someone else would have. And if Vince hadn't broken kayfabe someone else would have.
Internet would have eventually done them in as well
World Class and Mid-South joining the AWA and Mid-Atlantic, Florida and Georgia merging might have been able to hold off the WWF
Because pro wrestling USA worked
Erm...didn't they try that, and bomb spectacularly, twice? 🤣🤣🤣
@@Rjensen2 World Class and the AWA tried working together to unify their titles and yes it didn't go well But by then both promotions were running on fumes. Would a full merger a couple of years earlier worked? Who knows
@@DMS-pq8 Well, they actually did and it was a colossal disaster. Ever heard of Pro Wrestling USA?
These promoters couldn't have a cup of coffee together. Thats what vince took advantage of
They should have all abandoned their national or world names, admitted to being regional territories, and combined together in a tighter actual federation instead of the loose knit confederation they had been.
Crocket should have only bought the TN territories along with Southeast Championship, Florida and GA. UWF and Global should have combined to take TX , LA, AK etc. AWA should have taken St Louis, the IWA and Detroit. Finally Vancouver, Stampede and Pacific NW should have combined & finally Funks should have combined with the CA territories. That would have been cheaper tour dates & grabbed key cable channels in those areas & you would have had 4 NWA territories with AWA having the MidWest & maybe convince them to come back to NWA.
I like the way you think, some of my ideas mirror yours but yours are better
He didn't need to buy any of them. He could have just got TV in those markets and run shows there without paying the incumbent promoters a penny.
Who fronted vince the money to go national and put territories out of business?
Vince Sr essentially. Vince Jr was already there working for a decade, got the sweetheart deal to buy he promotion, got booking fees from Japan a he got a million to get off TBS in 84.
They should've taken out McMahon by any means necessary number 1. Number two the NWA should've banded together and elect a real leader. Bottom line this situation could've been solved. Business is business
True. This is the fault of the NWA and it's promoters (all involved). I don't believe that they trusted or respected one another enough to work together. I doubt if any of them had the humility or common sense enough to work with one another.
The territory system/NWA was not going to survive the expansion of cable TV. The only thing that could have been different was if a different territory came out on top.
Los Angeles wasn’t going to accept southern rasslin, so it was ripe for Vince’s cartoonish style.
What cable tv did was destroy each territory’s monopoly on their particular audience. Suddenly the fans in a particular territory could see a second or third style.
I grew up in New Orleans and my intro to pro wrestling was watching Mid South. They had the toughest of the tough guys battling it out. 4PM Saturday afternoon on 26, right after reruns of Lou Ferrigno on the Incredible Hulk at 3.
A couple years later, World Class gets a syndication deal on local tv on Sunday night, right when the Von Erich’s and the Freebirds was hot.
Then TBS gets onto the cable lineup and there’s Gordon Solie calling matches featuring Tommy WildFire Rich. And when Bill Watts got on TBS it felt like a victory for the home team. The rest of the country was going to be let in on our little secret down here in Louisiana, that we always had the best wrestling.
A couple years later, Vince gets a Saturday morning cartoon.
All this to mean that there was no monopoly anymore for the average territory fan. The territories now had to compete to keep their home fans happy; and with any competition some lose.
anybody with some sense would not like the WWF style of wrestling
Manning Bowl in Lynn Ma my hometown
This is just one mark's opinion, that has been watching for almost 35 years. I don't get the buying of the St. Louis & Kansas City territories. They were dead when Crockett bought them. As for Mid South, I know they still had talent & an audience....that tv was still going well. It was just the economy and lack of live show attendance that was killing them. I'm assuming Crockett bought the territory when he did, to beat Vince to the punch. To me.....and this is just my opinion.....would it not have been smarter to not buy Central States Wrestling & St. Louis Wrestling Club at all and then simply wait to acquire talent from Mid South/UWF as they became available? Just stick with the Mid Atlantic, Georgia & Florida territories, as far north as Maryland....and as far south as Florida. Then from the Atlantic coast as far west as Tennessee. I mean hell....with Ron Fuller's Continental Championship Wrestling in decline, that would have been a wise territory to buy over Central States, St. Louis & Mid South. Then Crockett could have pushed into middle Tennessee into Nashville and into Alabama. They were already right next to Continental. Hell....that was a major part of Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling territory. They could have eventually established a working relationship with Jarrett & Lawler's Memphis territory that Vince & the WWF would eventually have. Just my opinion.
David S.: NWA JCP MidAtlantic had already expanded from its traditional base of Maryland, Virginia, and The Carolinas into Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia by about 1980 or 1981 or so. In addition to co promoted Maple Leaf Wrestling shows with The WWWF in Toronto. NWA GCW expanded roundabout 1982 into Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. Moreover, years later Horseman Arn Anderson had a Homecoming moment in a Pensacola Great American Bash co promoted with talent provided by Ron Fuller's NWA Southeastern. The first two expansive pushes I spoke of preceded Vince's power grab by two to four years.🤔B.W.
@@madbrowniac7871 yes...i know about all that. I wss referring more to the territory areas Crockett was purchasing.
@@madbrowniac7871 sorry if i came off like a dick....not my intention.
Fair enough. Didn't mean to step on your toes. I just remember it especially via The Aptermags with some Companies and via The Television Airwaves with others. This grand Sport's History is clearly worth studious and loving preservation and remembrance. And via his ambition Vince destroyed much of that and altered it to an unmalleable and unrecognizable form.🤔🤷♂️B.W.
D.S.: Not mine either. And I am impressed by you as an obvious Pro Wrestling Historian. I send my apology to you as well. What's the moment where you knew it would be worth it to be a fan? I have two. And both happened in Alabama.😎B.W.
We Need Retro-Wrestling Conventions ‘ Like Fast
Ex Texas Ranger?????.............damn.
Always never thought the Jet was as bad as buying up territories they could have waited for to die then take whatever talent Crockett wanted.
i heard it costs 60k just to start up a private jet. buying up promotions wasn't as bad when you consider the tv he was getting. neither were all that wise, but the jet cost more long term. tv would have been handy to have if they didn't go under, also nothing stopping vince from going in and cherry picking.
He could have gotten the TV without buying the promotion, rings, libraries.
perhaps, but not a guarantee. i'm not sure how the tv was structured in those places, he likely got everything in one swoop, which at the time seemed like he got it for a song and a ham sandwich. don't forget he planned on running those towns too, so having a ready in place advance team is no small luxury.
Vince did it to a shit ton of companies, mainly the AWA, would snatch up the tv right out from under them and he didn't buy them out. No small luxury but a jet for crockett would have been nothing and a smart idea for going national if that's ALL he bought.
i view a lot of crockett's moves as preemptive. get there before vince does.tripling his payroll wasn't wise, obviously.
If not Vince I'm sure Ted turner would have done it.
What The Territories Could Have Done Differently to Survive?
The answer is, kill national cable television, and then the internet.
The territory system was doomed, even if the WWE failed, the minute national cable televison became a thing as it was only a matter of time before someone decided to take their business national.
The only way to stop Vince would have been to do what he did better than he did it. That was hard because Vince works all hours and risks everything without blinking.
Agreed, and they had the option to get an early lead to a tv foothold with TBS in Atlanta. Plenty of promoters and owners in the late 70s/early 80s where neck and neck with McMahon, he just made his own advantages and left them in the dust. And he created Hulkamania. And I put all that 80s marketing surge under Hulkamania. The cartoon, the ice cream, the toys, the glossy magazines..
Truthfully there really was no way the Territories could've survived, and their demise wasn't because of Vince McMahon. As time went on in the 60s into the 70s into the 80s all the Territories had become more and more dependent on Television, more specifically their local network shows. Here in the Northwest, just like in Dallas, Memphis, and all the others, everything major was done on their show on Saturday night on channel 12 at the Portland Sports Arena, titles were no longer traded in Eugene and Oregon City and Bend, while when a wrestlers heat in one Territory cooled they could move to another Territory and it was like a fresh start or the homecoming of a Legend. But then the 80s came and with it the explosion of CableTV, and local TV couldn't compete with USA Network, ESPN, and WTBS, and even those few Territories that did try to jump onto Cable had their problems as the promoters, entrenched as they were in their Territorial mindsets, couldn't understand that promoting shows on a national level required a whole different way of thinking, while the wrestlers they used, the wrestlers that moved in from other Territories couldn't renew their heat as the fans saw them in those other Territories. It wasn't Vince McMahons fault that the Territories collapsed, he just took advantage of it happening
Ferret, you hit the nail on the head............. i think Vince hastened what happened but as you note it was the superstations, specialty channels, etc that had the huge impact in the 1980s.... i think the non-WWE promo's needed to cooperate fully at that time and they did but then egos got in the way..... another thing was that the old NWA promoters (including Vince Sr.) did so much on good faith and people's word being true, but Vince Jr. just steamrolled that... lastly, Vince seemed willing to lost money today to make much more money down the line. not exactly sure how he was able to do that.
WWC is still around, although business went way down because of Brody's murder.
For the old Portland territory to survive, I think that if Don Owen were to allow Billy Jack Haynes to buy in it might have helped them. Maybe then Billy would have not played dirty pool with the commission. Plus it would have eased Billy into promoting.
Billy would have screwed it up even worse.
And like any other Portland/Oregon sports the people of the real world have know idea how good we had it! Rose,Pioer
Piper, suck great talent came through
@@thecoasties1602 while Billy could have or would have screwed things up but much like Jarrett & Lawler in Tennessee Billy & Don Owen could have had a lot of success locally in the PNW. Much like when Don & Dutch Savage were partners. Or Wally Karbo & Verne Gagne in the AWA. You have the 1 person taking care of the money & 1 person taking care of the wrestling part.
So explain then...why did Bill Jack Haynes go out of business almost immediately when he started up in opposition to Don Owen in 1988?
I may be a mark but that is what I like about AEW/NJPW/Impact reminds me of when NWA should send out the champ the wrestle the territory champs. I was a PNWPW mark and loved it when the Big boys came through.
Got Andre the giant on an exclusive contract before Vince Sr did
There needs to be a map that follows vince takeover month by month telling the behind the screens. Backstabbing what nots.
Like Bill Watts having the only promoters license im Louisiana: its ok if promoters have a monopoly, unless its Vince.
what if Bill watts or Jim herd never ran wcw
IT was apparent WWF and JCP could stand on their own two feet once Vince starting really ramping up his expansion. When it came to the other territories, I think some mergers needed to happen. IF they wanted to have the type of company that would entice big name stars to join up IF they left WWF or JCP for some reason. So for example AWA-Memphis could have merged. They already worked together as it was. The AWA World Champ for years defended in Memphis. Lawler would come up to AWA for big events. The Memphis titles had AWA prefixes on them. AWA also had ESPN in the mid 80's. They should have strengthened that bond even more.
In a perfect world, they do that BEFORE Savage left for the WWF. BECAUSE right under Verne's nose in Memphis was THE GUY most equipped between AWA and Memphis to be World Champ in a revamped AWA! Savage had the goods to match up against Hogan and Flair in terms of IT FACTOR! Plus Flair and Savage were the top two total packages in the industry at one point in the 80's.
WCCW-Mid South should have merged for similar reasons. PLUS they were in the same area of the country basically. When it came to some of the other territories, some of them would have died off unfortunately. The good news COULD HAVE BEEN four major companies that had national cable TV AND could at least offer the boys six figure salaries HOPEFULLY. Maybe not the money WWF or JCP could offer their top guys. BUT still enough money and on a big enough stage to do their thing there. They wouldn't have to live on a prayer and HOPE WWF or JCP would be interested.
I agree 100%. JCP was big in the Carolinas, Atlanta, some of Virginia, while major cities like Chicago, Baltimore & Philadelphia were neutral & big sports cities. WWF/WWE was never huge in the South. Even the AWA if they could of co exist with Memphis that would of been big because no all places were big on the WWE,/WWF or JCP
Hrm, so you'd have, possibly, the WWF ruling the BOS-WASH corridor and the West Coast; the merged AWA running the Pains to Ohio Valley; JCP running DC to ATL; and Mid-South along the Gulf Coast and Texas.
@@andrejg4136 Absolutely!! All four companies would have cable TV and syndication nationwide. BUT all four companies would have their prime areas where they were dominant in terms of the house show market. The other territories would die off. BUT those stars would have two great options with the AWA-Memphis merger and Mid-South-WCCW merger.
If they could have started that BEFORE Savage left for the WWF, Macho would have been the guy to build the new AWA around. With the other merger, Kerry or Dibiase would be my flagship guy. Just think it would have been a great move pool their talent and money to create two super companies to counter WWF and JCP! And it wouldn't be about overtaking those companies. But more about being a successful and viable company around for the long term.
Is that why JCP went out of business in the middle of it?
Crockett - Don’t expand out of the south
Fritz - David doesn’t die
Verne - Keep, and put the AWA belt on Hulk Hogan
Theres no way verne could of kept hogan though. Wish he would of taken vinces deal and kept the ranch. Was so sad how it ended for him
it would have made cents but they needed dollars
I do find it funny they were told to look for the guys in black cowboy hats if there was trouble. look for black cowboy hats...... in texas. it wouldn't be JR back then. but that's about the only person you could rule out.
The Von Erichs brothers not dying for Fritz Von Erich.
Hulk Hogan stays in the Mid-West for Verne Gagne.
Expanding no further west then Chicago for the Crocketts.
All those are HUGE game changers. Crockett was the MOST AVOIDABLE one u named. The plan should have been stay between Baltimore and Chicago. Which give you PLENTY of major cities along the SoutEast Coast all the way to the Windy City. From there, they had TBS. Which was growing steadily across the country in the 80's. Their penetration was growing rapidly. Where they DROPPED THE BALL was with their money management.
They should have been reinvesting BIG TIME in terms of marketing and production. They had a prime Flair as their flagship star. Flair in the 80's could have been JUST AS BIG as Hogan but in a different way! What Hogan was for kids and young teens, Flair could have been just as iconic mainstream wise for the 18 and up folks. We see how big time Flair is now pop culture wise! Due to social media, WWE Network, etc. Same thing could have happened in the 80's IF JCP had the proper machine to push a cool and edgy product!
The Von Erichs stopped drawing long before they started dying. The company was all but dead before Mike even died. Look at the Texas Stadium show in 1987, right after Mike died. The stadium was mostly empty, even worse than the Fritz retirement show in 1982 which only drew around 8,000.
@Sasqautch And the only golden age, really.
I was able to watch NWA, WCCW, WWF But never got to watch AWA much.
I grew up with AWA
Missouri Athlete Commission ruin wrestling in Missouri taking so much off the top at every show promoters couldn't and still can't make a living
Muchnick did ok
Hulk Hogan changed the game once he hit the wwf
Clubbed together to thwart Vince or one of them to have signed Andre to an exclusive contract before Vince Sr
Crockett should have never purchased the UWF outright just purchase 51% which is the controlling interest. Keep UWF as itself letting Watts still run it put some better matches on TBS for the fans. Do away with NWA World Wide & Pro switching it to UWF TV. Every couple months trade talent & do the house shows & pay per views jointly. Use Florida & Central States & Texas as development territories maybe have the jobbers face one another keep the big stars for both territories.
All they were buying is tv time. If you wait a few months watts would have just closed shop and Crockett just gets the guys they wanted. JR, what a salesman.
He never even paid 51% ultimately, so what the hell are you talking about? Do you know, or are you just repeating what you hear in other interviews? You don't actually think he wrote a $4 million check to Watts in 1987, do you? 🤣🤣🤣
@@moses0686 No, JR is a lying sack of shit. That's the only reason the deal was done. Ross lied to Crockett and said Vince was close to buying it. In actuality, Watts got laughed off the phone, even when Watts threatened McMahon with an anti-trust suit.
I wonder whether working to make Pro Wrestling USA work and run more and more shows would have helped? Running those Big Shows with Wrestlers from The NWA + AWA + UWF + Memphis + World Class, you could have folled Stadiums with those shows. I also have to ask, what if Verne Gagne makes Hulk Hogan The AWA World Heavyweight Champion and he defends The AWA World Heavyweight Title at NJPW Shows and AJPW Shows? Could we have gotten The NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs. AWA World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan? Could we have gotten UWF Champion Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Hulk or Ric Flair?
I don’t know, being born in ‘99 it just seems odd to have a bunch of segregated promotions, each with their own top guy. I guess I don’t really get how it worked. How could you be a star if you’re only a star in a certain area?
Each of the areas were isolated to a point. There was only local t.v., no internet, and only wrestling magazines that reported what was going on in other promotions. Heck, you even had to call and pay "long distance" charges if you called outside your local area which helped with the "isolation"
It was harder to be a celebrity before the Internet. Being on TV, even local TV, was a big deal. Being in a magazine was a big deal. Some people got big nationally by moving around and being an attraction everywhere. Traveling guys didn't wear out their welcome and got national exposure by being so many places, and the homesteading local guys got fresh opponents and the rub from traveling stars.
Vince is taking (or trying to take) all the talent from NJPW, and ROH now to try to do the same thing.
JCP had EVERYTHING IT TOOK to be the long term alternative to the WWF. WITHOUT having to sell to WCW. They just mismanaged their money. And didn't reinvest into marketing and production. When u have Flair and the Horsemen, Dusty, Magnum, LOD, RnR, Nikita, Sting, Luger, Midnights and Corny, etc. between 1985-1988, you had THE ROSTER to go to war with. If u gave a Flair a great marketing machine to cater to his strengths AND an edgy adult oriented product, he becomes JUST AS HUGE as Hogan. But in a different way!
U needed great star power to be a viable national promotion. And from there, u needed a tremendous marketing and production package to enhance it. NO REASON Dusty couldn't market Skoal Tobacco. Or Magnum market Harley Davidson. NO REASON Flair couldn't market luxury watches and champagne. NO REASON the LOD couldn't have appeared in action movies. Ricky and Robert shold have been marketed like wrestling's version of Bo and Luke Duke. Cornette was just as hilarious and witty as Heenan.
Capitalizing full words like a moron does nothing for your argument.
Netflix would be smart to try and work out a deal with WWE to put some content on it. WWE needs to branch out, the network is only for the hardcore fan.
Really all McMahon offered was more dates the money structure was basically the same
Those used car salesman promoters wouldn't have survived the big business environment. They were lucky to have the success they got away with.
Which used-car salesmen are you referring to? Fritz, Verne, Watts, the Welches/Fullers, Graham were all former wrestlers and had great regional success. Crockett had also been a success in concerts, sports, etc. The issue with that was Jim trying to fight Vince by buying all the failing promotions. The difference was (1) Vince had the advantage of his dad being based in the media-rich NE and ftd in MSG and (2) he didn't look at it as a wrestling company. The saying that he wanted to be the Walt Disney of Wrestling wasn't a joke. The territories still ran as they had for decades and had no desire to be National the same way WWF was being built, other than maybe Crockett once he got on WTBS. They were happy with being Jack's/In N Out/White Castle instead of being McDonald's. It was the Reagan Decade as well. "Greed Is Good".
So if they would have just stuck in their area they would have survived
Not really
I just want someone to make clips of Cornettes admitted burger dominations. He has fought wars against Wendy’s cooks. Lmao
Jim and Brian are both wrong about Watts. He WENT to work for Turner. The kind of wrestling the people in the Carolinas , Fl, Ga, Va WV liked wasn’t Vince because he had such a cartoon show but I also think they would have rejected Watts after a while too because his style was too stiff. Also remember when Cowboy came in , he bullied the talent and his racially ignorant comment got him in trouble. He might could get by with that in Tulsa but not Atlanta where the population has so many blacks. He would have pissed Turner off like he did in 89.
Lol....no, there aren't that many black people in Oklahoma, Mississippi, or Louisiana. And certainly not Houston, Texas. 🙄
Don't you love how Brian can talk about past event like he was actually there when it happened!! Those are the historians I like who actually does their research with being the total Brainiac lol
Yeah was shocked to find out he was a kid in the 90s and missed all of the golden age stuff from the 70s and 80s
They all should have used there union to collectively invest in cable they were to set in there old school ways if they had cable Vince would have had nothing to offer talent that the wrestling promoters didn't already have
NFL Commish Roger Goodell tweets out a thank you to Trump for the USMCA which solves a broadcast rights issue with Canadian TV (10-4-18)
@Don Johnson Obama campaigned twice on redoing NAFTA but never lifted a finger because he didnt know how. Trump did it in year 3 and the new USMCA trade deal at $1.3 trillion is the largest in the history of earth........but hey, we should believe you, with your comment that sounds like your feelings are hurt. OK!!!
Just too bad verne didn’t take vinces deal and might of been able to save his ranch
I grew up wit wwf early 90s in the uk so didnt really know much about the terrioty system till you tube but im lovin watchin the nwa. Mid south stuff now. Jesus saves
To bad Jesus didn't save the territories.
Vince may have won out eventually anyway, but Crockett could have held on for a while if he never tried to expand. Even when I was growing up in the early-mid 90's, WWF couldn't draw flies with shit near me. WCW could pull a few thousand for a useless house show on a Tuesday. Over-expanding caused the money problems, which led to Crockett selling to Turner. Then, the Bischoff era with the inflated contracts for limited dates brought it back temporarily; but, really that was putting the final nails in the coffin. WCW had plenty of talent at the end, but they all had creative control and didn't have to work when they didn't feel like it. And, of course, Shit Stain was booking by then, too.
Long story short, Vince probably wins eventually but Crockett was the one who could have held out the longest IMO.
Vince fucking with their ppvs helped kill them
Buying UWF and giving Vince the million for TBS slot. Wouldn't have paid Vince SHIT. Vince would've sold it for pennies on the dollar. Iron Sheik breaks Hogans leg.
Why is Idaho untouched
Cause its idaho
@Don Johnson wow. Well how about Utah?.. I mean Mormon land? Was wrestling to devlish for them?
@@sketchstevens5859 I believe that Idaho was covered by Don Owen & possibly Stu Hart since Stu covered Montana.
@@Fnoel98356 lol...no it wasn't. Those places were ran by the AWA, mostly.
@@sketchstevens5859 AWA