History of WCW vs WWF

[Guest EdwardKnoxII]

Part I of Part IV from everyone's best friend Dave Meltzer. Once again, typos (and there are some doozies in there) are left in for authenticity's sake. Of course some of them my be mine:

 

"Coming off the famed “Super Sunday” on March 27, 1988, the national pro wrestling war, at the time between Vince McMahon’s WWF and Jim Crockett Promotions was at a high.

It seemed to be a great time for the top talent, because the biggest names became huge pawns in this war and it drove salaries up to new levels. After getting thrashed head-to-head by McMahon at almost every turn, Crockett achieved at least a figurative win. He had by far the better show, and had created someone who many thought would be the superstar of the 90s in Sting. He also had Lex Luger, who in 1988, was considered by a frightening number of people to be the heir apparent to Hulk Hogan as the biggest money player in the game. But the win, in costing McMahon and the cable industry millions by putting a free major show opposite Wrestlemania, didn’t help Crockett’s bottom line much, even with it drawing the largest audience ever to see wrestling on the SuperStation.

Overall, 1988 was not a good year for Crockett. He was informed early in the year by his accountant that the company was going broke. From most accounts, it hit him out of nowhere. They were riding high at the time, going all over the country. Some nights they were doing good business, and others they weren’t. Crockett, like McMahon would years later, purchased a private jet to transport himself and his biggest stars like The Four Horsemen and Dusty Rhodes around the country. The cost of this was ridiculous. Crockett had moved his company out of its long-time in Charlotte, to Dallas, and wanted all of the talent to move as well. Few did. Charlotte was a friendly environment for his troupe of wrestlers. While they were not dong the kind of grosses McMahon was in the big markets, per capita, considering the population, the Carolinas had become a temporary gold mine. Most of the cities they went to didn’t have major league pro sports franchises, so the wrestlers, while not getting credit in the local media, were the local sports stars. Then the bottom dropped quickly.

There were a lot of basic problems. IN those days, the cable shows like the TBS Saturday and Sunday shows, were considered the “star makers.” By being in the Atlanta TV studio every Saturday morning on shows that as often as not, depending on who was hot that particular month, were beating McMahon’s USA Network shows, as cable expanded, the Carolinas stars became national stars. But in those days, to draw people to the arenas, which made up the bulk of the company’s revenue, you needed local syndication. At this point they were taping the equivalent of four first-run hours a week in syndications, and two more on cable. Unlike McMahon, who in those days would do three weeks worth of shows on successive days, Crockett would do two hours per shot, which meant three TV shoots per week-one fro cable, one for his existing syndication, usually taped in the Carolinas, and another for the UWF network, usually taped in that part of the country. They generally offered bloodier, faster paced and more competitive matches. While fewer in numbers, the crowds at the syndicated tapings, usually done in small or mid-sized arenas, were hotter than McMahon’s. Crockett believed in his heart when the country would compare the two products, in the long run, he’d win. And even if he didn’t, with PPV making it possible to make millions, and a TV network that rivaled McMahon’s once he got the UWF stations, ad sales alone should bring the company to new levels.

McMahon did a number on his PPV plans, costing him millions he was counting on, and making him unable to make the balloon payments in the big money contracts like those of Lex Luger and Ric Flair, who were earning $500,000 and $700,000 apiece. Even though “The Wrestling Network,” as Crockett sold his syndicated package to sponsors, drew combined viewership of all shows close to McMahons (and sometimes better), and higher than all but a few shows that were nationally syndicated at the time, advertisers didn’t care. He didn’t come close to the ad revenues he projected when he bought the company. McMahon was presenting Madison Avenue Wrestling, with the celebrity tie-ins and larger than life Hulk Hogan. Crockett was trying to sell the idea of better wrestling matches, which advertisers felt appealed to the more stereotypical Southern redneck audience, which was also an audience most major advertisers believed were not worth going after. The perception problem was huge. Crockett’s house shows were also falling fast.

A fundamental tenant of regional wrestling was turnover of talent. While most areas had their local legends, much of the big name talent would spend their careers going from territory to territory. The top names would usually start in the middle, unless they were the handful of instant main event draws, and win consistently all the way to the top. When they got there, they either sank or swam, and would stay as long as the local promoter could deal with them or the fans would pay to see them.

McMahon, signing talent to long-term exclusive contracts, changed that dynamic. Crockett had no choice but to follow suit or he would lose his talent. What kept both companies strong at the time is that each had the ability to make new stars, and would work in new faces to keep the matches on top fresh. But after a few strong years Crockett’s talent, particularly the clique on top, started getting stale. Crockett was afraid to let anyone go, because he’d be handing McMahon a new superstar, and it worked both ways. Rhodes, who did a brilliant job in 1985 and 1986 in making new stars, attempted to keep talent fresh by turning people, but that also started running its course. But even in those years, it was evident to see Rhodes was running so many angles that fans were getting spoiled, like junkies needing a bigger and bigger hit to get off, and that he was going to run dry. The purchase of the UWF ended up being that era’s equivalent of McMahon’s garnering the remnants of WCW and ECW. There was so much of a belief that the stars on our team were always better, that the new wrestlers, who actually came at the perfect time because the top badly needed freshening, were squandered, treated like stepchildren, and before long, almost all of them were gone. With two exceptions, one major.

Steve Borden was a good looking big bodybuilder in Southern California in 1985. Rick Bassman, who now runs, UPW, but at the time was an outsider in wrestling trying to get in, had a concept. The idea was simple enough. The Road Warriors were getting huge crowd reactions at the time and were the business’ hottest new act since Hogan exploded. To this day people debate whether that was good, because the Road Warriors’ act as heels was based on not selling, and while it was tremendous at getting them over, it was devastating to the credibility of their opponents. The first two territories they worked, Georgia and the AWA, both collapsed after they left as they destroyed the credibility of so many of their opponents. While they didn’t cause this, as the whole business was changing, fans were less willing to accept wrestlers without big bodies as serious stars.

Even though booked as heels at first, fans ended up loving them. They almost never did jobs and sold very little during their matches. While not as tall or quite as heavy, they were more muscular and powerful looking than Hogan, and gave the aura of being more real. In those days, fans looked at wrestling far less as entertainment and while virtually all knew it was a work, liked to get behind people who they thought in a real fight would kick everyone’s ass. While business insiders knew of stories like Ronnie Garvin backstage putting Hawk in a hold and him being unable to move, or street fighting stories of Haku, or of the legitimate toughness of Steve Williams, to most fans, they believed, nobody was tougher than the Road Warriors if it was real. And while that is of almost no concern today, it was a big deal then. Like with Hogan a few years ago while working for Verne Gagne, the fans had turned them babyface.

It was natural fans would get behind them as they laughed when the babyfaces’ moves were ineffective. Old-line promoters, like Verne Gagne, were having a tough time because of the belief that the babyfaces selling and selling should build sympathy for the big comeback. Bassman would watch them on TV and had an idea. In Southern California, the mecca for bodybuilding, a world where there was little money for the athletes, he’d see guys just like the Road Warriors in the gym. It was simplest of concepts, Hulk Hogan or Sgt. Slaughter U.S. patriotism, dubbed “Power Team USA,” with babyface clones of the Road Warriors. Unlike toady, where a big bodybuilders needs more than just muscles to make it, the public’s fascination with bodybuilders in wrestling was at its height.

Borden and Jim Hellwig, a former Mr. Georgia, were recruited by Bassman along with a couple trivia names, Mark Miller and Garland Donnoho, who never made it. The funniest part of the story is that when Bassman put together his concept, neither Hellwig nor Borden were part of it. He had designed four different characters, an African-American, a Hispanic, a blond-haired All-American and a native American. Miller was the Hispanic, Donnoho was the African American. Ed Brock, a native of Hawaii, was the native American and Jerry Botbyl was the blond haired All-American. Botbyl and Bassman had a blow up quickly. At the time they were doing most of their training in Reseda, CA and doing weight training at the local Gold’s Gym. Borden was the guy working behind the counter when Botbyl quit (he actually worked very briefly for the AWA under the name Jerry America, although almost nobody remembers him), and Bassman thought he’d be perfect for the part. Borden had watched a little wrestling growing up, but wasn’t a fan, and had zero interest. Bassman spent two months trying to convince him otherwise, and finally, he gave it a shot. Brock decided he didn’t want it. Ed Connors, the owner of Gold’s Gym in Venice, CA, heard there was an opening and put Bassman and Hellwig together, and Hellwig started his career with the idea he was going to play a Native American patriotic character.

Hellwig and Borden started training for a few weeks under Red Bastien and Billy Anderson. They quickly split with Bassman, left camp, sent some photos out which caught the attention of Jerry Jarrett, and started their careers in Memphis in November of 1985, with no idea how to wrestle. They worked there for a few weeks, made no money, and got a lot of notice in wrestling. They were huge by the standard of the time, which is what got them the notice. They were also so green it wasn’t even funny. While green bodybuilders were become standard in wrestling in that era, most had at least enough training to be able to functionally stand there and let the good workers bounce off them. These guys couldn’t even do that, but the success of Hogan led people to think muscular freaks were it. Literally, there was nobody in the business at the time even remotely as bad as those two. Jarrett named the team The Freedom Fighters. Borden was called Justice. That didn’t work fast. They were quickly turned heel in an attempt to salvage them, as The Blade Runners, Rock (Hellwig) and Sting. Although they didn’t succeed and were out of Memphis pretty fast, bodies in those days meant potential, and they moved up to Mid South Wrestling. It led to a big argument between owner Bill Watts and one of his biggest stars, Dick Murdoch. To make room for the two, Watts fired Kelly Kiniski. Kiniski, the son of wrestling Gene Kiniski, had been a West Texas State football star and was popular among the boys because he had been a good football player, the older wrestlers knew and respected his day, and he was a good technical performer. He also had no look, nor charisma. Murdoch was furious about him losing his job, but Watts asked Murdoch who he thought would draw more money. The two had a different answer and Murdoch was gone. They were put under the tutelage of Eddie Gilbert, an undersized third generation wrestler who at and drank the business from childhood to an early death. They improved, one faster than the other. Hellwig would complain to Gilbert when the Blade Runners were put in a program with company owner Bill Watts, who was in his late 40s. Hellwig couldn’t grasp why the two had to bump like crazy when punched by an old man, and Gilbert’s explanation that he was the local hero didn’t sink in to someone who lived for bodybuilding. Borden’s career went into another direction. With his name shortened to Sting, he dropped weight to emphasize a combination of power and agility, as he was naturally a good leaper. He kept the face point, and started teaming with Gilbert and another muscular newcomer, Rick Steiner, as Hot Stuff International, and made solid strides in the ring. Gilbert took a liking to Sting, and told people quickly he was going to be the next big star in the industry and would be a good worker, despite the image nearly everyone had of the Blade Runners from their untrained beginnings. He then turned him babyface and Sting started howling to the crowd after he’d do a big move. Gilbert was so proud of Sting, but he had the misfortune of the UWF pedigree after the sale of the company to Crockett. Shortly after his turn, he was jobbing to Black Bart, an Crockett mid-carder. While most of the UWF guys were being starved out, Rhodes also saw potential in Sting, and he was offered a $52,000 a year contract.

At the Starrcade in 1987 that McMahon blocked most of the country from seeing, Sting was in the opening match, teaming with Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin in a time limit draw against Gilbert & Steiner & Larry Zbysko. At Crockett’s second PPV that McMahon thwarted by putting on the Royal Rumble, he was in a dark match. It was just three months later when he stepped into the ring in his career making match. When Flair vs. Sting for the NWA title was announced for the first Clash of the Champions, head up with Wrestlemania, Sting by today’s terminology, seemed destined to be a mid-card babyface who was about to hit his head on the glass ceiling. But instead of Flair winning the long, hard-fought match, usually by holding the tights of using the ropes, as was Flair’s m.o. in those days against mid-card faces, they went 45:00 to a draw. Rhodes, who was still the booker, in those days never met a world title main event that he didn’t want a screw job ending in. Even after a career making classic match, the last taste was unsatisfying. They announced three judges would decide the winner. The Penthouse Pet of the years, Patty Mullen, voted for Flair, with the idea given she did so because Flair had either bribed her or was doing her. Gary Juster, a house show promoter, voted for Sting. Sandy Scott, a respected former wrestler and current road agent for Crockett, voted a draw. Think about that. They had judges to avoid a draw if they went the time limit, and it was still a draw. Sitting at the table with the three was a child actor, brought in as a celebrity. The small actor a few years earlier did a short-lived TV series where he played the son of Terry Funk. His name was Jason Hervey, who at that time played the arrogant older brother of Fred Savage on “The Wonder Years,” and years later would end up as one of Eric Bischoff’s best friend, and play a part in changing the course of wrestling history himself when the connection between the two helped land Bischoff the job of Executive Vice President of the company years later.

Wrestling is a strange mistress, because its ebbs and flows of business are enough to drive people to drink and drugs, if the lifestyle itself didn’t lend into that direction. After the record-setting Clash audience, the word got to Ted Turner that Crockett was running deeply in debt. Turner had an affinity for wrestling since it put his station on the map a decade earlier when, in the infancy of cable, his weekend wrestling shows were the first shows in cable history to routinely draw more than a million households, at a time when only 18 million homes were wired for the station. The Flair-Sting match was the first match to top three million homes. Crockett’s next big even, the Crockett Cup tag team tournament, won by Sting & Lex Luger over Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson, only drew 8,500 fans to the Greensboro Coliseum. It was a huge disappointment at the time, and put the sale into high gear.

However, on July 10, 1988, in Baltimore, Crockett finally got his real PPV. They had a McMahon-quality PPV main event with Luger getting his first shot with Crockett at Flair’s title. The cable industry had laird out a doctrine to both sides after Mania, and there would be no more sabotage. Well, except internally. By this point, both Maryland and Pennsylvania’s athletic commissions had banned blading in pro wrestling matches, and Maryland stopped matches at the first sign of blood. A deal was worked out ahead of time, where the commission worked with the promotion on the finish, since the commission itself got to go over. Luger would blade, which he had almost always balked at doing, make a comeback, and put Flair in the torture rack. The bell would ring and people would think it was a title change. But no, it was an offshoot on the fake title change finish that had been done so frequently in Flair’s main events that it had devastated house show business. The commission would rule that because Luger was bleeding, the match, by commission rules, had to be stopped. It was made worse in execution, as Luger’s blood was barely noticeable, and NWA fans, used to bloodbaths, had to have been upset.

When the tombstone of Luger’s career is written, nearly everyone in wrestling will say that nobody got paid more of pushed harder who never a dime. Nobody ever got paid more on undelivered potential. It is true Luger’s career never came close to what everyone was projecting for him from day one, and nobody certainly could forsee the end result of his life. But there was a time that Luger was hot on a national basis and he drew. It was his first babyface run, after breaking from the Four Horseman (which opened the slot for Barry Windham to go heel). It was Arn Anderson’s job every night to put over Luger, who immediately became the company’s hottest babyface, to get him ready for the big money program with Flair.

The Bash drew a sellout of 13,000 and and $208,000, although at the time, anything but a sellout for the first Flair-Luger match would have been considered a distaster. The negative is that both Crockett and Turner broadcasting, who were partners in the PPV show, saw Starrcade in five markets do a 3.3 percent buy rate. While McMahon ran Survivor Series head-to-head and did double that, there was no place in the country where both shows were available. Based on that, and that this was a match people were wanting to see, and not Ron Garvin vs. Flair, they expected a buy rate of 3.5 to 4.0, which in those days would have been 260,000 to 300,000 buys. Wrestlemania had just done 485,000 buys with free TV competition. Where they miscalculated is that four of the five markets Starrcade ran in were Crockett-friendly markets in the Carolinas, as well as Atlanta (the only exception being San Jose, because the local system, knowing full well it was costing them money, said it wouldn’t back down on its commitment to the Crockett show, since Crockett announced his date first, even thought the other 210 of the 215 or so major cable outlets at the time did). On its first show without competition or sabotage with national clearance, with TBS marketing behind them and a ton of publicity, they did 190,000 buys. While TV ratings and house show attendance at the time said otherwise, they were much farther behind than they had imagined.

The forgotten part of history was, the Flair-Luger finish, as bad as it sounds and as botched as it was executed, worked. Even though Sting was more popular than Luger, he was more like Rob Van Dam, a cool guy they liked, but nobody they expected to actually win the title at the time. His title challenges after the Clash match drew only decently. Flair did a program with Steve Williams (who was considered the UWF champion, even though they had stopped mentioning the title that he had never lost), which did even worse. Luger had been groomed as the next big thing, and people bought his challenges and believed they might see a title change. They went all over the country with Flair-Luger rematches from Baltimore, and it was drawing. Richmond and Philadelphia sold out, Atlanta (which had fallen as low as 1,800 a few months earlier) and Norfolk came close, and almost all the smaller Carolinas cities went clean. In Charlotte, they drew 16,000 fans, which was the third largest crowd in the history of the city. The rest of the Crockett family saw that as a sign, and started opposing Jim’s negotiations to sell the family business, which held things up, but only slightly, when they realized if they didn’t sell and kept the company much longer, their family would lose all the money their father had made from the half-century old business. With the strong advances, the company took out two loans in excess of $300,000 to meet certain payroll and television station obligations to avoid losing its network, with the idea the money would be repaid out of the sale price. But after another screw-job of Flair being DQ’d in all the markets, business for rematches fell to just above normal levels. Stress levels, on the other hand, were way above normal. Rhodes took the brunt of the heat, and deservedly so. Like almost any booker, he pushed himself far beyond what he should have. He was 42, and overweight. He was more and more limited in the ring, but booked himself against great heels who would hide his weaknesses. The main heel group, the Four Horsemen, at this point composed of Flair, Blanchard, Barry Windham and Arn Anderson, got more frustrated at time went on. In September, Blanchard & Anderson quit before a show in Philadelphia, with Anderson, drinking heavily, but came back in the ring and were professional enough to lose the tag title to Jim Cornette’s Midnight Express. Next stop for them was WWF. A few weeks later, the deal with Turner was closed for approximately $9 million, with the Crockett family retaining a minor interest (which years later was bought out) and all getting jobs with the new organization. David Crockett was given an executive job on the television side, while Jackie Crockett remained as a camera man on the television show. Jim expected to be run the wrestling division under Turner, but the company had other plans. He ended up with one of those consulting jobs where he was never consulted with much."

[Guest EdwardKnoxII]

Much more of Dave Meltzer's Pullitzer Prize-winning epic on the history of wrestling. There are a ton of typos here too, and Dave's timeline of the Warrior's IC title reigns is all over the map, but whatever, it's still an awesome article.

So anyway, here's Part II of Part IV:

 

"WWF, with Hogan on the sidelines all summer filming the movie “No Holds Barred,” actually had its best summer since the expansion, built around a main program of new champion Randy Savage vs. Ted DiBiase, in rematches of the Wrestlemania title tournament final. The company, coming off the Mania debacle, was out for blood. They wanted a window to avoid confusion in the marketplace in PPV. The idea was that they wanted no pro wrestling PPV events a few months before, and for a month after, all of their shows. With a few shows per year, the idea was to make that avoiding confusion be a way of shutting out Crockett, or Turner, for good. It may have even worked if it was just Crcokett, since his track record of drawing couldn’t touch McMahon’s, but Turner was far too powerful in the cable industry for that to fly.

But it did lead to the creation of a third major annual event, Summerslam, which debuted on August 29, 1988 in Madison Square Garden. Hogan returned just before the show, to hype a match, teaming with Savage over DiBiase & Andre the Giant with Jesse Ventura as referee in the match where Elizabeth, as the secret weapon, dropped her dress and walked around in a bikini bottom, stunning DiBiase & Andre, and caused them to lose. The post-match celebration saw another major tease, as Savage gave Hogan a jealous glare, which was another step in the year-long cooking program to build for their first match at Wrestlemania. The show drew a sellout of nearly 20,000 fans paying $355,345, and another 500,000 buys on PPV.

Earlier in the show, Ultimate Warrior won the IC title a second time from Rick Rude. Warrior was getting crowd reactions that rivaled Hogan, and while not at Hogan’s level, was doing exceptional merchandise business. When he was put in the top spot as IC champ at house shows, crowds were better than one would have expected on non-Hogan shows (which meant no world title main event). In reality, Warrior was McMahon’s best example of emphasizing someone’s strengths and hiding his weaknesses. He was literally nothing more than a great body with a well choreographed ring entrance, cool music, cool look, sprinting to the ring (which the Road Warriors actually started), a lot of shaking the ropes (which when he first started, the agents told him was stupid, but the crowds went wild and it stuck), and usually short matches. Not only was he protected in short matches, but also on finishes. It wasn’t some great innovation either, as McMahon’s father had taken some big limited men and made them drawing cards, and Dusty Rhodes had done such a great job of hiding and protecting Nikita Koloff that he once drew 27,000 fans at Charlotte Stadium against Flair, and remained a viable main eventer for years afterwards. In his entire WWF tenure up to that point, he was only pinned once, by Rude in the bout in which Rude won the IC title from him. And that was with outside interference of Bobby Heenan, and was designed only to build up Warrior regaining the title at Summerslam and lengthen their arena program since there were so few guys he could work on top with. With the exception of great bump taking heels like Rude and Mr. Perfect (Curt Hennig), it was almost impossible to get a decent match out of him.

Even though most considered Perfect the best worker of the two best friends and high school classmates, Rude’s style meshed with Warrior’s better, plus he was also very muscular, making for another good dynamic, so the company did what was needed to keep the program going. A year earlier at the Summerslam where Elizabeth pulled off her skirt, Warrior won the IC belt for the first time, from Honky Tonk Man, in just 31 seconds. It worked because Honky was also limited in the ring, and doing a long match wouldn’t have done anyone any good. In those days, that title meant the top guy in the company with the exception of Hogan and whomever he was working with in the main program.

WWF’s business was so strong that many nights they were running four different crews. Hogan (or his understudy, Jim Duggan, who would headline in the smaller markets Hogan wouldn’t work) led one crew, Savage led another, and they had “C” and “D” shows to hit small markets. The key to the “D” shows in particular was to work with local groups as fund raisers. WWF was flying high, and these shows, usually with the building taken care of by the local group, were no risk events. They also put another nail in the coffin of the smaller regional groups that were around. If a local group in Alabama wanted to sponsor a wrestling show, WWF was too big, so they’d go to Ron Fuller, the local promoter. At the time, these types of shows were very prevalent. With WWF on the hunt for these dates, local groups didn’t bother with their local promotions.

Savage’s main opponents in late 1989 were Andre (always doing DQ finishes) and Badnews Brown (Allan Coage, the 1976 Olympic bronze medallist in judo). By the latter part of the year, particularly when Hogan came back, Savage’s program was not pushed as much as Hogan’s, and by the standards, he was just drawing okay. Hogan came back for a program with the Big Bossman, a rising star with Crockett under the name Big Bubba Rogers who was an incredible creation of Rhodes and Jim Cornette’s, who left for money reasons. Rogers had proven he could draw already, as he and Rhodes a few years earlier had done big business. With his new gimmick, he gave Hogan a beat down with his night stick gimmick, and even without the belt, he and Hogan were packing them in. But as was the case whenever things got too successful, McMahon was branching into new ventures. Besides the movie was the world of boxing. McMahon paid a reported $9.5 million for the PPV rights to a boxing match between Sugar Ray Leonard, who had been a de la Hoya level draw a few years earlier, in a comeback fight against Donny Lalonde, who was never a big name boxer. McMahon promoted the fight like it was Wrestlemania, on his wrestling telecasts, and while he proclaimed it a big PPV success afterwards, it was almost certainly not. It was the last boxing match McMahon would ever promote.

WCW was in total disarray as the sale broke. Rhodes and Flair were on the warpath when Turner executive Jack Petrik took over the wrestling division on December 1, 1988, starting a 12 plus year run of a few major highs and far more legendary incompetence. Petrik discovered wrestling as a big deal when, working as a television executive, he got a job with Ch. 30 in St. Louis in the mid-70s. He quickly learned that wrestling was huge in the city, as the wrestling show was often pulling a 60 share in its time slot. He first put wrestling from Detroit on, but the show was horrible and drew no ratings. He tried to get another show in, but found something very strange. No wrestling promoter that had a decent show would let their show be put on. He quickly found out the power Sam Muchnick, who was no longer NWA president, but still its most respected promoter, held in the business. Petrik met with Muchnick to try and get his show, but Muchnick had a longstanding relationship with KPLR-TV, where he was friends with the owner and General Manager, and wouldn’t consider a move. But he brokered a deal. He called Vince McMahon Sr. and said he could get the WWF TV tape for the station, but the deal was McMahon Sr. would send the tape to Muchnick, not the station. The deal was that Muchnick would insert commercials and interviews building up his own house on the tape, so his shows were pushed on two stations in the same market.

While in St. Louis, Petrik became friends with Jim Herd. Herd was a former college football player, who worked at KPLR-TV in the early 70s and worked as both director and head of production on Muchnick’s “Wrestling at the Chase” show. It was a huge shock when, in 1972, after an opening, Herd became the general manager of the station. While Muchnick was personal friends with the station’s owner, Hal Prodder, and knew Herd Well, he took Herd into the secret circle of St. Louis sports. Muchnick, Bob Bowen (the trainer for the baseball Cardinals), Bob Burns (sports editor of the St. Louis Globe Democrat) and Bob Broeg (a sports columnist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who was considered one of the great sportswriters of the 20th century) formed the 1-2- Club and had lunch every Monday. All the movers and shakers in the local sports scene, from Jack Buck, the city’s most famous sportscaster, to Ben Kerner, who owned local major league sports franchises, were there every Monday where the big deals got done. It also helped Herd get a job briefly with the NHL’s St. Louis Blues.

Herd wasn’t successful as the station general manager, and worked several jobs over the next 15 years, including a stint as a banking executive. At the time Petrik was handed control of a wrestling company, Herd was a vice president with Pizza Hut. Petrik only knew two people that were involved in the business from his stay in St. Louis, Herd and Muchnick.

While Herd knew the St. Louis wrestling personalities like Pat O’Connor and Dick the Bruiser, and knew a little about wrestling, he had the outsider mentality that it was cowboys and Indians and you come up with wacky gimmicks, even though Muchnick did a very different product, When it was first approached to Herd that a good early move would be to woo Ricky Steamboat out of retirement, he didn’t even know the name since Steamboat’s career hadn’t started when Herd was involved in the business.

Muchnick, who was 83 by this time, had retired years early but had maintained friendships with many in wrestling. After his wife died, he had lost his fire and retired, and had no interest in coming back full-time, but still got a kick out of being I the thick of things. He recommended his protégé, Larry Matysik, to be the booker. But before he was hired, Jim Barnett talked Herd out of it, saying Matysik wasn’t a booker. Technically, when Matysik and Muchnick arranged programs in the late 70s, the booker of record was always O’Connor, who also had input. Herd was talked into hiring Bob Windham, a huge wrestler best known as Blackjack Mulligan. Windham came to work for two days, and apparently seeing the future, never came back. Rhodes, who booked Crockett into oblivion and was hated by nearly everyone, had no idea of what was going on. He was still at war with Flair and just wanted the title off him. When the dust settled in January 1989, the man chosen was George Scott. Scott had a hell of a resume as a booker. He was Crockett’s man in the 70s when the regional outlet running in smaller markets became per capita probably the top promotion in the country. He took a crew-cut AWA job guy recommended by Wahoo McDaniel, told him to watch Buddy Rogers tapes, and made him Nature Boy Ric Flair. He tried to make Greg Valentine a copy of his father. He filled the ranks with solid veterans. He brought in a Half-Japanese, Half-American named Richard Blood who had more potential than almost any wrestler that had come along in years, and tried to recreate a famous Hawaiian babyface of a generation earlier, Sammy Steamboat. One night on television in 1977, Blood pinned Flair, the company’s most charismatic star, and in one night, Ricky Steamboat became the newest wrestling superstar. Scott was also the booker for McMahon when he first went national, until losing a power play to Hogan and Pat Patterson. He resurfaced in Dallas for Fritz Von Erich, but time seemed to pass him by. His eventful reign was best remembered for how he used Bam Bam Bigelow. The 380-pound Bigelow, whose tattooed forehead and coming off the top ropes at that size were things unheard of in wrestling, had gotten a decent amount of national publicity before ever turning pro due to a Studio 54 publicist who wanted to get into wrestling that was his friend, named Paul Heyman. In his first territory, Jerry Lawler made him look like Bruiser Brody crossed with Jimmy Snuka. Scott made him a Russian named Crusher Yurkov.

The Turner people knew little, but the people they were listening to were big on Flair as the key player. While it is not known publicly, had Flair jumped to WWF, and that was not all that far from happening at the time, the decision had been made by Turner to pull out of the deal. It was only a few weeks into the run when Flair was about to jump again. Starrcade on December 26, 1988, had long been scheduled to be a conclusive Flair-Luger match. Rhodes, who was still the booker, wanted the title off Flair, and wanted him gone. He then wanted to force the issue, and changed plans. Flair was told he would be losing to Rick Steiner in a 5:00 squash match. While that wasn’t as ridiculous then as it sounds today, as Steiner was strong enough to be booked as a singles opponent for Flair at many arena shows at the time, this wasn’t business talking. Steiner was going to be put in Luger’s spot as a shooter, but not to hurt Flair necessarily, but only in the event he wouldn’t cooperate. Rhodes didn’t trust Flair in the ring with Luger, but knew Flair would never try anything with Steiner, who was considered the toughest guy in the company. When Flair heard this new plan, he quit. Herd went to Matysik about this disaster that was happening. Matysik told him, Flair vs. Luger was the best business match for Starrcade, and since they had yet to do a pinfall finish after five months of working all over the country, Flair, whose credibility as champion had been shot by Rhodes’ booking, desperately needed a win. Herd told Rhodes that Flair vs. Luger would be the main event, and that Flair was going over clean. This led to Rhodes wanting out as booker. But to make things more dramatic, Rhodes booked an angle where the Road Warriors, who he had turned heel, would put a spike in his eye and he would blade. The new Turner management had ruled there would be no blood on their wrestling shows. Rhodes was fired as booker, and in an unrelated story, another long-time headliner, Nikita Koloff, quit. As it turned out, Flair didn’t want to win clean, and got the pin in 30:59 with his feet on the ropes. It was considered a bad sign when the match drew 10,000 fans and $150,000, failing to sellout the Scope in Norfolk for the company’s biggest show, and did 140,000 buys on PPV.

It didn’t take long for McMahon and Turner to hook up. Steamboat, who was Flair’s favorite opponents, was sitting on the sidelines after quitting McMahon, in one of his many pro wrestling retirements. Herd had never even heard of Steamboat two months earlier when Matysik brought up his name as someone on the sidelines who could help the company. When Scott got the job, since he was friends with Steamboat and gave him his first break and in return, Steamboat gave Scott the best matches in the country and his most successful program, it was natural they’d hook up. Steamboat wasn’t sure how much he wanted to wrestle, and both sides agreed to a six month deal, where Steamboat would get the NWA title, something he’d never held, and they would go from there. On January 6, 1989, the TBS studios were the site of two weeks worth of tapings for the Saturday night WCW television show. Barry Windham was wrestling Eddie Gilbert for a DQ. Gilbert wanted a tag match, and said he had a mystery partner. Steamboat came out and pinned Flair in one of the best television matches in years. This led to matches that many of today’s wrestlers, who saw while growing up, would rank as the greatest matches ever held, and sequences from the bouts have been copied on shows big and small ever since that time.

On and off from 1977 until Steamboat’s departure to WWF about eight years later, the two would feud in the Carolinas, and it is generally believed to have been the biggest money feud in the history of the territory. While Steamboat was a far better wrestler by this point, his marketability was down. Steamboat was an incredible 25-year-old babyface in the late 70s. He had almost movie star looks, a great physique, quickness and athletic ability, great stamina, and was nothing short of an incredible worker. He and Flair defined what was great wrestling then, and were about to redefine it again. But while almost every wrestler loved working with Steamboat, because he was so unselfish in the ring and, like Flair, could make mediocre wrestlers look like world beaters, he lacked in losing the youthful babyface charisma he had. He was 36 years old, and in great shape for his age, but not the heavily roided look so many had at the time. His gimmick was he was a family man, bringing his wife and young son to ringside at his big matches.

While few fans were aware of it, from a business standpoint, it is almost impossible to talk about Steamboat without bring up his wife, Bonnie. A former model, Bonnie’s introduction to wrestling was also in 1977, in the middle of Flair and Steamboat. She was a local model in Raleigh who was hired to be one of Flair’s baby dolls for a TV angle. Flair, who played the ultimate playboy, had a dressed up woman on each arm and was all dressed up himself. IN an angle that the two duplicated on a bigger scale in 1989 just before their first match of the series, Steamboat attacked Flair and tore his expensive suit off, leaving him in his underwear, with nothing but his dress socks and a tie. Steamboat and Bonnie met again years later, and she wanted nothing to do with a wrestler. So of course, they ended up married. Bonnie was impossible for promoters to deal with, always feeling Ricky was getting the shaft in some form, and it being wrestling, she was probably right at least some of the time. Bonnie made it clear from 1987 on that she thought the four biggest stars in the business were Hogan, Flair, Savage and her husband, and they were all making more money than he was. The problem was that Steamboat was, with Flair, the best in the country at making a match, but he was not a good draw on top. Even after the Wrestlemania III match with Savage that many considered the greatest match in WWF history not only at the time, but for many years following, the house show rematches between the two didn’t draw well. Bonnie gave birth and Rick asked to take time off. Rick’s long IC title run plan was changed when he asked for time off. On June 2, 1987 at a TV taping in Buffalo, the decision was made for Steamboat to lose the IC title to Butch Reed. Reed was a superstar for Watts, that McMahon’s people felt, by copying Sweet Daddy Siki as an African-American bleaching his hair blond, would make him one of the great heels of all-time. He didn’t come close. Reed missed the show, so they were scrambling. The unlikely choice was Roy Wayne Ferris, the first cousin of Memphis wrestling legend Jerry Lawler, as the Honky Tonk Man.

While everyone who had been around wrestling for years knew it, there was a strong lesson sent to everyone in 1989. Great wrestling matches do not necessarily sell tickets. They do if the personalities or dynamics of program work, but the fringe fans who make the difference between a house of 3,500 and 12,000 are not coming because a ***** match may be held in their hometown. Steamboat’s tenured in WWF and WCW, and he bounced back-and-forth, always ended bitterly, more than once with lawsuits filed.

The family gimmick was totally wrong for a pro wrestling babyface at that time. But three big Flair/Steamboat matches of 1989 are remembered as they should be, for what took place inside the ring. What is largely forgotten is that none of the three drew well.

WWF, on the other hand, was on fire. Hogan and Savage did their break-up over Elizabeth on February 3, 1989, and their Wrestlemania match on April 2, 1989, because PPV had grown from five million homes two years earlier to 11 million homes, looked to break the Hogan-Andre total revenue records. With Savage as a heel, he was packing them in against Ultimate Warrior. Hogan was still packing in against Bossman. The turn had made Savage so hot that many people questioned whether Hogan should get the belt back right away because it was obvious this program, perhaps the best long-term slow building angle in company history, was going to be huge. The plan was always for Hogan to win it back. The babyface long chase of the big belt was an NWA program, and the WWF did things differently.

With all that money at stake, WWE tried a power play. The tradition was a 50/50 split of PPV revenue between the local cable company and the promoter. Actually it was less than that, because the PPV channel itself would get a middle-man’s piece, so then, like now, the wrestling company got about 43% of the total PPV revenue. With PPV clearly the future biggest revenue source and Wrestlemania figuring to be the biggest wrestling event in history, McMahon demanded a bigger cut. The same cable companies who were mad at Jim Crockett for putting on a free show, costing them millions, against Wrestlemania IV, went to Turner, the most powerful man in cable. They asked him to put on a show on a PPV show April 2, 1989, largely playing hardball with McMahon. TBS even named the show “The Ultimate Gable” (a name that ended up being dropped because it ended up as a Clash of Champions). Request and Viewers Choice, the two biggest in the PPV market at the time, both had gone to Turner. McMahon would have been lucky to have cleared 25% of the cable homes, and to make matters worse, nearly all of those companies would have broadcast the Turner show head-to-head, leaving millions on the table.

At first, McMahon considered going heavily into closed-circuit, but in two years, the dynamics had changed greatly. Wrestlemania IV was down 60% in closed-circuit from the records set by Hogan and Andre. A heavyweight title boxing match with Mike Tyson, an incredible draw, against an undersized Michael Spinks, had just bombed on closed circuit, and it was considered a dead business.

There was simply too much to lose to prove a point, really, on all sides by not airing the Hogan-Savage bonanza. McMahon backed down on his demands. The companies that had begged Turner to run a show, now were begging him not to. WCW had made many plans for that date, so the compromise was reached where one last time, there would be a live free TV special going head-to-head with a PPV.

McMahon managed to head-offTurner on February 20, 1989. He ran a house show two nights earlier, selling out the Rosemont Horizon with 17,900 paying $213,000, which Titan claimed at 19,000, reporting it as the largest indoor crowd in the history of Chicago at the time. Hogan beat Bossman in a cage, plus Savage over Brown, in St. Louis, broke the city’s all-time gate record set for the Muchnick retirement show seven years earlier. Steamboat pinned Flair with a cradle off a figure four leglock in 23:18 at the UIC Pavillion to capture the NWA title in a match that nobody who saw it likely will ever forget. But the paid attendance was only 5,111 paying $68,700, with 7,900 total in the building with paper, and did about 155,000 buys on PPV.

But April 2 ended up being the classic signs of what would plague the WCW organization, problems with understanding the very basics of high stakes wrestling. Jim Herd moved the show from the Omni in Atlanta to the Superdome in New Orleans for the Flair-Steamboat rematch, head-to-head with Mania at Trump Plaza. While Trump Plaza was a disaster as a site for Mania the previous year, this time The Donald paid McMahon a $1.8 million site fee to have the event at his casino. With its much larger capacity, Herd figured on a p.r. coup of out drawing Mania both with live audience and total viewers watching on television. He didn’t count on the most obvious problem. New Orleans had been dead as a wrestling city since some time before the death of Watt’s promotion. McMahon made an attempt in that building a few years earlier with a Hogan & Junkyard Dog tag team on top, and only drew 6,000 fans. Worse, Scott couldn’t get into the groove about the changing business. To Scott, the television was designed to sell tickets to the house shows, and nothing more. That’s how wrestling had been for years. Flair vs. Steamboat was main eventing every house show, and Scott felt that pushing that the match would be on free television would kill the live gates. There was almost no mention, and no hype at all, for the show on any of the WCW television, even as late as the week before the second Super Sunday. TBS didn’t get Scott’s thought process, and even those that did recognized the importance of the show and that Scott was out of touch with the changed business. His days were done. The revolving booking pattern, a WCW tradition, was well on its way.

As the worst-hyped major show in anyone’s memory, there were only a few hundred tickets sold in a building that could hold about 90,000. Scott was fired the Tuesday before the show, and replaced by the first of many booking committees, this one consisting of Gilbert, Kevin Sullivan, Herd, Jim Ross, Flair, and Barnett. They had exactly one Saturday afternoon sow to hype what was supposed to be a major show to oppose Wrestlemania. Even worse, the rating on that show was a 2.0, the lowest rated Saturday TBS rating in history, blamed on the dull TV Scott put together over the previous month. It was another embarrassment for Herd, since he had invited many of the NWA champions of the past, such as Pat O’Connor, Lou Thesz, Buddy Rogers, Gene Kiniski, and Terry Funk to the show, as well as Muchnick. Funk’s appearance proved to be interesting. He suggested the idea he was interested in coming back.

Wrestlemania drew 18,946 fans and a new North American record of $1,628,000 to Trump Plaza. Combined with the site fee, the WWF made more at the live venue than for all but a few shows in company history even to this day. There were about 650,000 buys on PPV, which also broke the all-time record, a number which held up as a record until the 1998 show which featured Tyson as a referee leading to the coronation of Steve Austin as the next gigantic drawing card in the business. To put that figure in perspective, there are roughly five times as many homes that have PPV today, and this year’s Wrestlemania did well under that figure. Savage had contacted a severe staph infection in his left elbow and was told not to wrestle. There wasn’t a chance of that happening, and he put on his usual top flight big show performance as he lost to the Hogan legdrop in 17:51. The main event was good, but the rest of the show was not. For the second year in a row, McMahon’s highlight show of the year was only No. 2 on the day.

Flair and Steamboat were booked by Scott to do a 60:00 draw in a best of three fall match. The new committee made a minor change. They did a carefully done finish of the third fall at 55:32. Steamboat went for a double chicken wing submission (the same move Jazz now uses as a finisher), the same move he had won the second fall with. But his knee, which Flair had worked over much of the match, gave way, and they wound up in a double cradle with both men having their shoulders down. It was ruled Steamboat got his shoulder up. The camera work was carefully designed to miss Flair’s leg brushing the ropes at the finish. But during Steamboat’s post-match interview, he saw a second camera angle, which clearly shows Flair’s foot on the ropes, for the controversy to lead to another round of rematches. By almost all accounts at the time, it was their second straight ***** match and the only question was which of the two bouts would win Match of the Year. As it turned out, this was the one. But only Steamboat knew the real price, as he was coughing up blood in his hotel room that night from the ridiculous number of brutal chops he had taken.

But when it was over, Herd, Flair, and the rest of those in charge found out the meaning of a term that would be repeated for years. WCW was the red-headed stepchild of the Turner family. Even though the ad department was specifically ordered to guard against this happening because they knew McMahon loved to sabotage the product and had actually fooled them into something similar on the first Clash a year earlier, and ad taken by the WWF to call their 900 number for all the news and results of Wrestlemania aired late in the broadcast. Worse, CNN, owned by Turner, sent an entire crew to Trump Plaza, and gave a ton of coverage to Mania, but never once mentioned the Clash. USA Today did a preview and Hogan referred to the NWA as “a small outlaw group,” while Steamboat said that the WWF didn’t have as good wrestling as the NWA. But it wasn’t all one sided, as it had to be an embarrassment to WWF when Bryant Gumbel went on television the day after Wrestlemania and talked about Flair and Steamboat having the best wrestling match he had ever seen.

But with no promotion, the Clash did a 4.3 rating, the lowest rated Clash of Champions history up to that point in time, and just a 5.0 for the main event itself, which at the time was 2.42 million homes. There were only 5,300 in the Superdome and just 1,300 paying $15,000. The company announced “more than 20,000” anyway. Michael Hayes, who did the color on the show with Jim Ross, and is a current member of the WWF writing team, and held the record for the building in his 1980 dog collar match with Junkyard Dog that did 28,000 people (announced as 38,000 at the time), even went so far as to point out he held the wrestling record in the building, and then paused embarrassingly, and said, “wee, uh, until tonight.”

But like the year before, the Clash of Champions created, in one night, another star who would become one of the biggest names in the business over the next decade.

While not making a Sting like impact, the wrestling world was buzzing the next day about a Japanese newcomer who was supposed to be a heel managed by Gary Hart. 26-year-old Keiji Muto had been wrestling in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico as Super White Ninja. He did well in those circuits, but in Texas, was mainly a punch-kick heel so as not to show up the Von Erichs, in particular Kevin, who was his rival, but who nobody was allowed to out perform when it came to high flying moves. But against Steve Casey, he let loose. With his ring speed and unique moves, including never seen before moves like the handspring elbow, the power elbow and the finishing moonsault, the crowd went wild for him. But politics were in all force. Even though people were cheering him, the doctrine was that American fans would never cheer a Japanese wrestler. He was at first called The Great Mota, because someone confused his real last name with that of a famous baseball player from the 60s. It quickly became The Great Muta, who manager Gary Hart claimed was the son of the Great Kabuki, another Hart protégé who was a top U.S. heel in the early 80s in several different circuits. If he had turned, as many on the booking committee wanted, it could have meant the end of Gary Hart. So he stayed heel for a year, largely working against Sting. Muta and Sting started a feud of face painted high flying heavyweights that was among the highlights of the year, and remained famous in Japan thereafter, as they would wrestle against each other or team with each other on big shows for years.

Muta, like most of the wrestlers on top with the company, brought workrate to the table. Jim Herd was promoting great wrestling. But he was no match for a great wrestling promoter.

The final chapter of the legendary 1989 trilogy was on May 7 in Nashville. The war was in full force. Herd, attempting to do a celebrity tie-in, didn’t learn from the mistakes of his predecessor. Years earlier, Crockett’s Great American Bash tour included a concert with a major country star, David Allan Coe. Even though the stereotype was that the wrestling audience was the Southern redneck audience that liked monster trucks, country music and NASCAR, blending the two on the same show didn’t work. Herd didn’t know this, and for the PPV, hired the Oak Ridge Boys for a concert. It turned out to be a very expensive intermission. McMahon booked the same building for the night before, doing the company’s best sabotage job. As was the m.o. at the time, McMahon kept the show going well past midnight, delaying by a few hours the already rushed set-up for the PPV. WCW countered by sending many of its wrestlers to the local mall at the same time as the WWF show. The WWF still drew a near sellout of 7,950 fans and $76,000, for a show designed not to entertain. It wasn’t as if the guys were told to tank it, but the motives were clear. Not only was the regular crew that would have run that night, with Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect, Demolition vs. Bossman & Akeem (One Man Gang) and Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude scheduled, but the other major show running that night had Savage vs. Beefcake and DiBiase vs. Jake Roberts in Indianapolis. At about 10:30 p.m., Jim Powers and Mike Sharpe were put in the ring for a long match to stall until the headliners who had worked earlier in the night could fly in. The idea was to keep the fans until 12:30 a.m., and burn them out with a four-and-a-half hour show, to kill the walk-up for the PPV the next afternoon.

WCW’s PPV drew 5,200 which with the stage set up for the Oak Ridge Boys, looked full enough on television, but a sizeable percentage of that was papered as the house was $37,000 and paid was under 4,000. It did about 150,000 buys on PPV. The Flair-Steamboat gimmick this time, was that in the advent of a draw (which the previous match was supposed to be until the late change), three judges and legendary champions, Thesz, O’Connor and Terry Funk, would pick the winner. Steamboat injured his leg, which Flair took advantage of. Later he went for a simple bodyslam, the leg injury was sold, and Flair cradled him at 31:37 of another ***** match. Even though New Orleans won Match of the Year, many considered it the best bout of the three, and many readers at the time considered it the Best Match of the entire Decade. Even though it wouldn’t look quite that good to modern fans, both HHH and Jim Cornette have called it perhaps the greatest wrestling match ever held. Jim Ross came to the ring to interview Flair, who with the win, was one shy of the all-time record for NWA title wins held by Harley Race (well today’s history would say, and correctly so, different numbers, but at the time, many out of the country title changes were not recognized in NWA records, so this was considered Flair’s sixth win, tying Thesz, and one behind Race). Funk came to the ring to congratulate him, and then turned subtle heel by constantly interrupting Flair, who even though he played heel in the match, was cheered by almost everyone for the win and for the good sportsmanship of he and Steamboat doing a post-match handshake. The live all recognized they had seen something special, which added to the atmosphere of the moment. Funk asked for a title shot and Flair said he’d be happy, but Funk had to do what everyone else did, and work his way up the rankings. A very slow build-up of words ensued, ending with a handshake, and a sucker punch by Funk, his 180 maniac turn (before such a double-cross spot was done weekly on television), and what was considered hardcore at the time, a piledriver on a table.

It was played up old-school, as if Flair had gotten a broken neck. Whenever Flair would leave the house around town, and even in the company offices in Atlanta when he’d come to do booking work, he always wore a neck collar. His doctor appeared on the television show to confirm the injury as real, which it was, although it actually happened years earlier and Flair had just kept wrestling on it.

At the time, WCW had another wrestler considered at the same level in the ring as Flair and Steamboat. He was Mulligan’s son, Barry Windham. Windham, 28, started wrestling as a teenager and became a huge favorite from early in his career as Rhodes groomed him in Florida. He was 6-6 and 260 pounds, and not only could work, but in his youth was considered a total heartthrob to women, and he was on everyone’s short list to be a future world champion. He had left for the WWF, where he formed a tag team with brother-in-law Mike Rotundo. They held the tag titles and were one of the company’s best teams of the 80s. He came back under Rhodes, and he and Flair had some of the decades best matches in the mid-80s, including two memorable televised matches, one in Orlando, FL that earned 1986 Match of the Year honors, and another in Fayetteville, NC. The latter was a unique one-hour television show where the entire show was one match, ending in a draw, and was considered perhaps the best television show of the year. Windham had been aligned with Flair for a long time, both in and out of the ring, as a member of the Four Horseman, and later as the top heel tag team when the Horseman disbanded with Anderson & Blanchard leaving. Windham was bigger, younger, more athletic and more versatile than Flair, and many would say better in the ring at the time. But didn’t have Flair’s dedication and passion for the business, charisma or interview ability and didn’t appear to be someone who would be as a good a draw because of it. As virtually every heir apparent did, Windham grew impatient waiting for Flair to grow old. When Funk got his promised spot as Flair’s next opponent, combined with being mad about not being put on the booking committee, there was a blow-up with management. He was laid up with a broken hand and supposed to get surgery. When management found out he hadn’t got his surgery even though he claimed he had, he was fired. Five weeks later he signed with WWF. To show that McMahon’s Midas touch with make people bigger than anyone else didn’t include everyone. McMahon recreated Windham, calling him The Widow Maker. The same person was considered championship material in WCW was a flop in WWF."

[Guest EdwardKnoxII]

You can't stop the CAN'T STOP THE MELTZ!

Part III of Part IV:

 

"“No Holds Barred,” Hogan’s big screen lead star debut, was released in June. It was destroyed by critics, but pushed like crazy on WWF television as the greatest action movie you’d ever see. It did $5 million, making it the top movie in the country, its opening weekend. It didn’t have great legs, and McMahon lost money on the project, and never himself put together another movie, although with his new movie division, that is likely to change. The plot was hilarious. The lead heel in the movie was the unscrupulous head of a major television network, determined to ruin Hogan, the big star for the rival company, and run the babyface promotion out of the business. McMahon couldn’t have been more obvious. But the movie did make McMahon a boatload of money in a very unexpected way.

Before Flair vs. Funk ever took place, a near disaster struck. Funk suffered a broken sacrum at a house show match just a few weeks before the PPV. It was kept secret from the public. Funk too a few shows off, but was back working house shows before the PPV putting on absolute clinic of working the fans into a frenzy while avoiding taking bumps because of his injury. He was supposed to be unable to wrestle, but he was tearing down the house every night against Sting. Outside of the ring, he appeared to be almost crippled. Flair, and all the WCW officials who saw him, were scared and afraid of what would happen for him to be in a long, physical main event program, particularly having to follow up the Standards of the Steamboat matches.

While Flair and Steamboat was a disappointing draw, Flair vs. Funk was the most successful feud of the first several years of the Turner company. Flair stayed out of action from Nashville through the famed 1989 Baltimore Bash. Flair’s return, his first match in years as a full-fledged babyface, may have been the best PPV wrestling show up to that point in time, in particular the triple main event, all of which were **** at the time. Newly turned heel Luger faced Steamboat. The original plan was a no DQ match with Luger going over. Steamboat, embroiled in a contract dispute after his original six-month deal had expired, refused to do a job unless a new deal was reached. Steamboat was looking for money comparable to the other top main eventers, below Flair, but above Sting. Herd saw that Steamboat hadn’t drawn, and the belief was Sting would be a huge draw someday and he and Luger were the future of the company. That meant a DQ finish in what may have been the best match of Luger’s career. There was a lot of internal strife about the Steamboat deal and wrestlers were vocal in siding with Steamboat, who was very popular among the younger wrestlers because he’d give them pointers and carried so much respect. Many also noted that Luger, whom people were talking about after this match as a top-20 wrestler and who won Most Improved Wrestler that year, really wasn’t that good. Steamboat had created the illusion with him, and that was a hidden value Herd didn’t understand. Flair in particular tried to go to bat for Steamboat, noting that the belt was still the most important thing and there were only a few former world champions even active, and in those days It carried a status that would stay with most champions even active, and in those days it carried a status that would stay with most champions until the end of their career. But it also should be noted that ultra-face Steamboat, because he loved to sell., to the new audience that got off on power and domination, gave him a mixed response.

Steamboat was under the impression they had reached an agreement for $275,000 per year. Herd claimed not to have agreed to that figure, and when crunch time came would only offer $225,000, since he was under pressure to cut costs by this time. Steamboat felt insulted that two months after being world champion and having the mostly highly acclaimed series of matches in the U.S. in anyone’s memory, or at least dating back to the legend of Funk vs. Brisco from a previous generation, that he, with his track record and star power, was being offered considerably less than Sting or Luger. In those days, it was standard operating procedure in wrestling that when a wrestler left WWF or WCW, it would be ignored publicly and wrestlers’ name would never be mentioned. The smaller, the AWA and Mid South years earlier, would got on television and attempt to bury if a major star left, stating they left because they couldn’t handle whomever it was they were feuding with at the time, or if they left for WWF, it was because they were looking for easier competition.

Herd instead instructed Gordon Solie to announce that Steamboat had suffered a foot injury (he did have a foot injury, but was willing to work through it). They even sent out a press release stating Steamboat was out with a foot injury and for personal reasons, but the parting was amicable and they would like to bring him back.

There was also a War Games, and Flair got his revenge pinning Funk in 17:23 in a ****1/2 match that was very different from the usual Flair style. Buys were up to 180,000. The company also set its live gate record, that would stand until the boom period under Bischoff, with more than 12,000 paid and $188,000. The rematches at the arenas were not on fire, aside from an Atlanta series of three bouts, which all drew more than 9,800, and the expected Amarillo sellout, but it was the best drawing house show program in WCW until the late 90s. Flair started wanting to turn back, but it had been set up for him to work with a heel Luger at the end of the year and for Starrcade at the time.

If there is a frustration with fans who have followed McMahon’s rises and falls with the current product, it is that many of the basic tenets on how to get people over were maybe not invented by McMahon, but certainly fine tuned. There was no greater example of this than Tom “Tiny” Lister. Lister, at 6-4 ½ and 280 pounds, played Zeus, Hogan’s rival in the movie “No Holds Barred.” He was an African American actor, huge and gassed up. He had not only never wrestled before, but had never trained to be a wrestler. McMahon put him in giant lifts and billed him at 6-10 (which wasn’t as hard as it sounded since Hogan was always billed at 6-8 in those days). They did a few TV angles, where he looked indestructible. He sold for nobody, and one clumsy blow from him would lay out everyone who got near him. At the time, many wrestlers were furious. Years earlier, when McMahon used Mr. T, there was an uproar among veterans, because he was using an actor and making him look stronger than his main event wrestlers, which they saw as a slap in the face to wrestlers and the business. But in hindsight, few could argue the contribution Mr. T made to the growth of wrestling. But Mr. T was a household word that got the entire country talking, as possibly the biggest TV star of the era. Lister, while impressive looking, was an unknown actor who had a small part in a movie that had a good first week and then quickly died. When he first showed up on WWF TV, claiming a grudge against Hogan from what happened on the movie set, there was denial even within the company that he’d be put in the ring, let alone in the main event of the company’s second biggest show of the year. When confronted, several in the office even told wrestlers, who could see the obvious, that they were seeing wrong. Wrestlers were told it was something they were doing on TV to promote video sales of the movie, and nothing more.

But in an angle taped on July 18, 1989 in Worcester for NBC, the two squared off. Zeus stood on the ring steps to give the illusion of being the muscular giant that Hogan had never come up against. Hogan’s best drawing foes had been usually the fat giant monsters like Andre, Kamala, John Studd, King Kong Bundy or One Man Gang, or the good workers who were much smaller than him like Savage and Paul Orndorff. Hogan threw punched, and Zeus just stood there no-selling. He put some simple nerve hold on that he couldn’t possibly botch and Hogan sold it like it was the Fritz Von Erich Iron Claw.

McMahon was almost completely without fear. He booked a tag match, Hogan & Brutus Beefcake, Hogan’s childhood best friend who through his influence became one of the big stars of the era, against Savage & Zeus. The Meadowlands Arena was sold out with about 20,000 paying $350,000. The show did a whopping 575,000 buys, the second largest total up to that point in history, behind only Hogan vs. Savage, up to that time in history. Zeus tagged in three times and did nothing but chokes and bearhugs. With the kind of numbers this show did, one would think it would have led to a long series of lucrative bouts, as they could easily do a singles title program that could have either drawn close to record numbers on PPV, or a huge house show run. But McMahon figured that even in those days, Zeus could be exposed in one night. Hogan pinned him with a legdrop to vanquish him as a contender. But over the next eight years, man Wrestlemanias didn’t come close to those numbers. This was the same promoter who got the charismatic but totally untalented Ultimate Warrior over, not just for one big gate, but for a few years. Yet 14 years later, when he signed Bill Goldberg, he did the opposite, and also got the opposite results.

This was also the same promotion that stumbled for the first two months of the presentation of Brock Lesnar, until Hogan, of all people, agreed to the scenario that overcame most of the early mistakes, for about a month, until internal politics and a presentation that exposed his out of the ring weaknesses took the edge of Lesnar’s character as well.

The lessons of Zeus and getting beaten by WWF despite putting on so much better wrestling saw Herd try to beat McMahon. He came up with crazy ideas that everyone else was shooting down. He wanted Flair to change his name to Spartacus, cut his hair, and come out in an outfit like in the 50s Steve Reeves movies. Instead of realizing that the Clash with Flair vs. Steamboat wasn’t promoted at all, and the rating they got was a miracle, he decided it was proof that nobody wanted to watch a wrestling match that went longer than 20:00. He felt WCW’s better wrestling could win the adults, but he needed characters to win with the kids. His most famous idea, which actually transpired for a few weeks, was a masked tag team called The Ding Dongs. They would wear costumes with bells all over them, be billed from Bellville, and the member of the team outside the ring would have a giant bell that he’d constantly ring. To make things worse, with no trial run, he tried this one out on a live Clash on June 14 on a brutally hot night in Fayetteville. In those days a Clash, except for PPV, were the only time wrestling was televised live, and also in those days the worst time to try out a risky act. Greg Evans & Richard Sartain, who were under the masks, didn’t realize that when they would take a bump, the small bells attached to their costume would fall off. Within two minutes of the match, the ring was littered with small bells, and they became the first of many laughing stock acts in the history of the WCW promotion. Another idea was a tag team called The Hunchbacks, with the gimmick that since they had hunchbacks, they could never be pinned.

Ironically, Herd also had other ideas at the time. He wanted to move WCW Saturday night from its traditional 6:05 p.m. start time to 7:05 p.m., with the idea the ratings would increase in prime time. Actually in those days, the traditional time was more important than prime time to wrestling fans, and ratings dropped even in a theoretically better time slot. He also wanted to do the show live, saying that live would be worth 1.0 to 1.5 added ratings points. In those days, without the communication, most fans just assumed everything was live anyway so it’s probable that wouldn’t have meant a thing. Even years later, when Raw would do a live show and then several taped shows, the taped shows usually drew better than the live show. Smackdown even today almost always has a higher audience, and usually a better realistic rating than the live Raw. However, his idea of presenting a house show like card, live, in prime time every week, years later was the thing that turned the industry around. The other thing that turned the company around, raiding WWF for talent, was also his idea. While Hogan was thought to be untouchable, and quite frankly, Hogan was so big at the time that his jumping probably would have completely changed the balance of power, because it’s doubtful WCW would have botched the country’s biggest potential drawing program of the time, Hogan vs. Flair, like WWF did years later, because there wouldn’t have been the level of ego involved. Herd had no interest in Warrior, as many felt him to be a flash in the plan. But he had serious interest in the tag champs, Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard, and in particular, Piper and Savage. Piper wasn’t doing a full schedule at that point. If the company had a synergistic effort, they could have landed him, and quite frankly, had at least enough of a shot with Hogan to open doors. Among the companies under the Turner umbrella were movie companies. Both Piper and Hogan were looking toward Hollywood as their futures. Offering both a contract that would guarantee movies built around them, combined with wrestling, would have been difficult to turn down. But wrestling was the red-headed stepchild at the time and Herd had no luck using the big company resources to help him. Years later, when Eric Bischoff did, it was a big help in getting big names to come over.

But more so, Petrik was nervous about the company losses, and the last thing he wanted to do was add to the payroll. Herd had talks with both Piper and Savage. Whether Piper was truly interested, only he knows, as it seemed there was a pattern with him. He’d be gone for a while. There would be talks with WCW, and suddenly, he’d be back with WWF on television. Savage was going back-and-forth, but by that time, his wife Elizabeth, understood the business enough to where the decisions were simple. “If they offer more money, we go,” she said at the time. But when the meeting came down, Petrik only authorized Herd to offer Savage around $600,000 per year, which was less than he was earning already. Those discussions ended quickly with everyone feeling they had wasted their time. Herd also had another disadvantage when it came to the bottom line. The big organization expected the wrestling company to carry its weight through house show and PPV revenue (merchandise was not a big deal although they were trying). Years later, the company started paying $8 million per year in rights fees for the three hours of weekly programming and highly rated Clash specials. If Herd had that advantage, the company would have been in the black even in the first year, and so many of the pressures would have been different. He’d probably have been on better footing to offer deals to raid talent. It’s ironic that with all of Herd’s bungling, that the main ideas Eric Bischoff used to turn the company around were the same ideas Herd had from the start, but the company wasn’t interested at the time in risking serious money to compete with McMahon, feeling they should just try to lose as little as possible while providing a good product.

The big shows for the rest of the year from both companies largely came themed shows and not build-up for world title matches. WCW’s Halloween Havoc, its most successful PPV of the company’s early history, hit 215,000 buys while going head-to-head with the seventh game of the World Series. It was headlined by a Thunderdome cage match with Flair (wrestling with a staph infection and a 102 degree fever) & Sting, now elevated to main event status for the first time ever on PPV, beating Funk & Muta in 21:55, with Bruno Sammartino, by this time a hated enemy of McMahon since quitting the company as announcer, working as referee. But the live show failed to sellout Philadelphia, drawing 7,300 paying $104,234. WWF’s Survivor Series failed to sellout the Rosemont Horizon, which Hogan and Bossman had done months earlier for a house show, doing 15,294 paying $239,917, and doing about 380,000 PPV buys. Hogan teamed with Jake Roberts & Demolition to beat DiBiase & Zeus (in his second match) & Powers of Pain in an elimination match. Zeus, who didn’t wear the lifts in his boots he wore the first time, was shockingly shorter than Hogan after towering over him months earlier, and was DQ’d immediately to get him out of the way. They didn’t even put it on last, saving that for Ultimate Warrior, who by this time was very seriously being considered as Hogan’s heir apparent. The big deal for Warrior was a house show run where he would, in the main event, pin Andre, who had only been pinned once in WWF rings, in the 1987 Hogan match every night in the less than one minute. There was no question after that kind of result that he was the next superstar. It got over good in some cities, poorly in others. Many felt it would kill repeat business, but Warrior-Andre rematches, while down, did solid numbers. Warrior & The Rockers (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty) & Jim Neidhart beat Andre & Haku & Arn Anderson & Bobby Heenan. Heenan replaced Blanchard, who had been advertised until the day of the show even though he was no longer in the company.

Flair, as booker, wanted his buddies, Blanchard & Anderson back. At the time, they were WWF tag team champions, but didn’t have the size nor the physique to be headliners in that environment. They were more suited to the WCW wrestling product, and were far more over to that audience from their glory days. Herd authorized Flair to offer them $250,000 apiece to jump, as their contracts were coming due, and it was more than they were earning at the time. They jumped at the offer. With the company running so deeply in the red, Herd had second thoughts. Anderson & Blanchard gave notice and immediately dropped the tag team titles to Demolition on October 2 in Wheeling, WV. Right after that, Blanchard was informed that his last drug test came back positive for cocaine, and he was let go on the spot. Herd, fearing criticism from his higher-ups if the media word got out that the Turner company had just hired a wrestler who had just been fired by the rival company for cocaine, rescinded the offer for Blanchard. He also cut back Anderson’s offer to $156,000. Blanchard was 35 and looked to be entering his peak earning years in the business. He went from being ready to get the biggest money contract of his career, and suddenly he was unemployed, and with no future in the business he had grown up in from childhood, and he knew nothing else. Like his father, after wrestling had kicked him to the curb when Southwest Championship Wrestling went down, he coped with losing wrestling by finding religion. While he wrestled independently and had a flirt or two years later with returning to wrestling at WCW, it never transpired, and it was the shocking end of a big-time career."

[Guest EdwardKnoxII]

Here's the rest of the article. There's another typo where Dave says Hogan and Warrior was gonna headline Wrestlemania V. It's small, but there sure are a lot of errors in this article. I mean, it's a ton of information that Dave has to get out in a week, and he obviously works really hard on this stuff, but still, there probably shouldn't be so many of these errors in such a piece. Of course Dave is just so awesome that it doesn't really matter.

Anywho, here's Part IV of Part IV:

 

"There was one last ***** classic on the big stage that year. In perhaps Gordon Solie’s last great hype job, he coined the phrase, “Five letters. Two words. I Quit.” The prototypical and possibly greatest I Quit match ever took place on November 15 in Troy, NY.

The Flair-Funk program had run its course at the house shows, and Flair as scheduled to move on to Muta and Luger as contenders. The final Clash of Champions that year was to be the blow-off of the feud. It was also supposed to be the last match of Funk’s career, although few outside the company knew that. He had already retired twice before, once in Japan in one of the highest profile retirement tours and final matches in wrestling history, but came back a little over a year later. He quietly had done so after breaking his back a few years earlier and being in so much pain he couldn’t go on. It was WCW management, fearing for his health, despite the match quality, who decided to retire him, and use him as a television announcer for the rest of his contract. Few imagined at the time he would come back to work for the company many times over, retire so many times that nobody could keep count, and would still be wrestling at the age of 58.

Funk was 46 and had long been one of the business’ all-time legends, but outside the ring, due to all his wars, he moved like he was an old man. Once the bell rang, it was another story. Many feel that this was the greatest match of his U.S. career, and from a pure brawling standpoint, the greatest of Flair’s as well. It was the simplest of endings, Funk saying “I Quit” while trapped in the figure four at 18:38. The show drew a 4.9 rating, but the main event did a 6.3. While it didn’t peak as high as the final 15 minutes of the Flair-Sting Clash match, for the match as a whole, it reached 3.216 million homes, making it the most watched match from start-to-finish ever on the Superstation, and trailing only the first national Royal Rumble for all-time cable viewership record.

Starrcade, originally scheduled for Flair vs. Luger, was changed. The company had been doing marketing focus groups on its talent. Among people with no knowledge of the product, the most likeable personality was Sting. Flair didn’t fare nearly so well. This told the TBS brass that as good as Flair was in the ring, and as loyal as his following, he shouldn’t be “the man.” Flair wanted to be a heel again anyway. The scenario was that Starrcade would be a singles and a tag team tournament called “Future Shock, The Night of the Iron Man.” The company’s top four singles wrestlers, Flair, Sting, Muta, and Luger, all wrestled each other with the idea of starting the push for Sting to be the company franchise. Muta, who hadn’t done a clean singles job all year, was asked to lose three times. He did, got furious, and quit the company, going back to New Japan where he eventually became the company’s biggest star. Luger pinned Sting early, to set up the future, but via the complicated point system, Sting pinned Flair in 15:54 of what was supposed to be a 15:00 time limit but they didn’t get to the finish on time, to win the tournament. Generally speaking, there was a lesson, from the 1985 WWF Wrestling Classic and 1988 Wrestlemania, that tournaments do disappointing PPV business. This one didn’t even have the title at stake. The sow drew 5,200 paid (6,00 total) at the Omni, less than half of what two of the Flair-Funk house shows had done in the building a few months, earlier, for a $70,000 house for what was called in wrestling, “ the granddaddy of them all (since Starrcade was the original supercard ). Those in WWF, hearing those numbers, joked that WCW had just killed Starrcade. But PPV buys were at normal WCW levels, or roughly 150,000.

It was supposed to set the wave of the future. And it did. WCW would present great matches in the ring, but the presentation was all botched up. The idea for 1990 was this. Flair, as a babyface, would convince Sting to join the Four Horsemen after Sting proved himself at Starrcade. Then, the Horsemen, Flair & Ole & Arn Anderson, would turn on him, to set up the title match. Sting would win the title on February 25, 1990 at the Greensboro Coliseum. Luger’s win over Sting would be played up to make Luger his main heel foe, with Flair in the background. Several WCW officials who didn’t understand the business thought that would make the company turn around. The booking committee for the most part didn’t, as it was composed of Flair allies like Cornette and Kevin Sullivan at that point. But nobody, including Flair, had any objections about putting the title on Sting. But it still didn’t happen that way, which led to a ton of early year fireworks.

Most consider, at the age of 40, that 1989 was the greatest year of Flair’s career. The three steamboat and the I Quit Funk match finished as the top four in Match of the Year, making it an accomplishment that no feud and no wrestler in history has ever done. The Baltimore Funk match placed sixth. A March 18 match at the Capital Center with Steamboat that wasn’t televised was as good as any of them. An August 20 house show match in Chicago with Funk was better than the match in Baltimore. The legend of these matches were such, that three years later, when they were replayed by Bill Watts in lieu of current programming on the Sunday TBS show, they did far better numbers than anything current, They also did very strong numbers for a few all-night wrestling parties on the Superstation five or more years later, usually based around this core of matches. Many would rank them the top for matches in the 13-year history of the company.

But the company had lost $6 million, perhaps the biggest one year loss of any wrestling company in history. Flair was both the booker and its biggest star. Many blamed Flair as being too old to headline because the little kids who worshiped Hogan couldn’t relate to him, as the TV demos still showed WCW, with all its publicity drawbacks, dueling evenly with adults and being way behind in Kids. Sting was younger, fresh, thought to be potentially as charismatic (although time proved that not to be the case) and a whole lot better wrestler than Hogan. But he couldn’t do a promo that got people wanting to buy tickets. He could have great matches with Flair, or most of the top guys, but didn’t have Flair’s, and most of the great NWA champions of the previous 20 years’ ability to carry mid-level talent. After the show, in the company’s home base, most fans talked about Flair stealing one more show, having three great matches and putting Sting over, and classily ending the show by saying, “To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man,” and, pointing at Sting, “I give you the man.” But company officials were talking differently. Flair was one short of tying Race’s record, and the big quote of the night was, “there will be no No. 7.”

As the WWF’s year came to a close, it was evident the big money match would be something new. It would be a battle of babyfaces. WWF officials had avoided this kind of a match on a big stage for 18 years, since the Sammartino vs. Pedro Morales match at Shea Stadium. Hogan vs. Warrior was set for Toronto’s SkyDome to headline Wrestlemania V. With Hogan scheduled to do a movie right after, logic said that Warrior was going to go over. For McMahon, it was a way to repeat the ultra successful 1978-1981 period. Warrior would be the young champion who drew because he was in the title match programs, a far more charismatic Backlund even if two people couldn’t have been more opposite in every way except decades later getting into Republican party politics; while Hogan would be around, probably as an even bigger draw, in the Sammartino “Living Legend” role. Really, things couldn’t have looked much better.

Barely four years earlier, Borden and Hellwig were two muscle head alternates for a concept from a guy who wasn’t even in the wrestling industry, found at Gold’s Gyms in Southern California. They trained together and started together as a tag team, and were an initial laughing stock. As the new decade approached, they were set to be multi-millionaires, and were supposed to be the two biggest stars to carry the business through the final decade of the century.

As important as all that sounds, none, in hindsight, was as potentially important as three minor incidents, two of which were considered relatively insignificant to the point that nobody in wrestling was probably aware of them. The third, while it made news, hardly seemed all that important either.

In late 1988, the U.S. Government passed a law making it a felony for a doctor to prescribe anabolic steroids for anything other than a legitimate medical reason. Bulking up and getting shredded to get over as a pro wrestler didn’t qualify.

In July of 1989, five months after Vince McMahon admitted publicly that pro wrestling was staged entertainment, largely to get out from under the New Jersey State Athletic Commission’s new taxes (this actually failed, as it was years before the Jersey commission dropped the regulation), efforts to do the same in Pennsylvania passed. In order to drop regulation, McMahon promised there would be no blading in the state, continuing the doctrine from James J. Binns after the incident where Wahoo McDaniel got a blade lodged in his forehead years earlier at a Crockett show at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Philadelphia. That was no great compromise, as in those days the company wasn’t allowing blading, and Pennsylvania had been blood free for years. Ironically, many years after this agreement was made, Philadelphia, through ECW, became known as the blood capital of pro wrestling. The other agreement was that with the commission dropping regulation, it would no longer appoint a physician at ringside for the matches. But they did not want medical supervision dropped, so the agreement also included that the promotion itself would be responsible for hiring its physician.

The department hiring medical help for shows for the company fell under a woman named Anita Scales. She had been with the company for years, and was unknown outside of wrestling, but was well known within the business.

Dr. George Zahorian fit a similar profile. Older fans probably remembered the doctor at ringside with his bow-tie, who would sit ringside at the television tapings in Allentown’s Ag Hall. The ring announcers in those days began the show similar to boxing, announcing the commissioner in attendance at ringside, the timekeeper at the bell, and long-time fans will remember, “your physician in attendance at ringside is Dr. George Zahorian,” and the very distinctive closing line, “and my name is Joe McHugh.” On a few occasions, when a doctor was needed to sell an injury angle on television, Zahorian, a mark for the wrestlers, was a very willing participant.

But tapings had moved out of Allentown years earlier. In wrestling, Zahorian was known as the dealer. Whenever wrestlers came to cities in that part of Pennsylvania, Zahorian, appointed by the commission, a governmental agency in what would many years later turn out to be the ultimate in ironies, would be there, setting up shop. Guys would stand in lines, and come out with paper bags filled with steroids and downers. If there was much of a time lag between stops in the area, wrestlers would order by phone and Zahorian would Fed-Ex them packages. Zahorian was hardly the only doctor doing this, but he was the most famous. It was a joke even dating back to the early 80s (Zahorian started doing this in the late 70s), even when Vince Sr. was running the company, when wrestlers would come in from other territories, they’d be 20 pounds heavier, credited to Zahorian.

It was no secret. McMahon, according to testimony in his trial from Hogan and secretary Emily Feinberg (who kept McMahon’s steroids under lock and key), started using steroids with Hogan when “No Holds Barred” was being filmed in Atlanta, getting Fed-Ex packages from Zahorian, and continued until contracting hepatitis a couple of years later and being told by his doctor to get off them. Scaled knew of Zahorian’s rep and considered him a sleaze, and thought it was not in the best interest of the company to have him at their events, let alone actually hire him to be backstage where it was known he’d be dealing. She immediately got word from Pat Patterson, and later even Linda McMahon, that she was going to hire Zahorian for the next show in that part of the state. Scales testified in McMahon’s 1994 trial that she was told by Patterson, who in the same trial testified under oath that he had never heard of steroids at that point in time, that “the boys need their candy.”

But before the first show where he would have been hired, Linda McMahon was at a public function in Pennsylvania and was given a tip that the feds were investigating Zahorian and it would be in the company’s best interest to steer clear of him. Scales was immediately told to unhire him, and Patterson called Zahorian and told him to get all of his records of WWF wrestlers out of his office, expecting a raid.

It was that tip that may have saved both McMahon and the company. Had Zahorian been hired by the WWF, with full knowledge he was a dealer, that would have been the needed that every well could have convicted McMahon of the charged conspiracy with Zahorian. With the WWF business in the shape it was at the time, a conviction would have been devastating, and would have greatly changed the course of wrestling history. McMahon would have served time with a conviction in such a high profile case. Without that hiring, there was no link, and really no evidence of a conspiracy. McMahon was declared not guilty. Zahorian himself wasn’t so lucky in his trial in 1991, which started the ball rolling. He was convicted, and served a few years in prison. The post-trial publicity was the catalyst for the end of the first boom period for the company, and a year later, the end of the first Hulkamania era as well."

[Guest Boo_Bradley]

Keep posting'em good stuff!