WCCW...watching some old tapes

[Guest Arnold_OldSchool]

Top Faces are Kevin, Kerry, (Mike is on the shelf), Brian Adidas, Iceman

 

Top Heels are OMG, Mark Lewin, Rick Rude, Chris Adams, Gino Hernandez

 

*Von Erichs have a press conference in early 85:

 

Kerry named "Wrestler of the Year"

Kevin named "Man of the Year"

Mike Named "Rookie of the year"

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Missy looked hot as hell in her debuet, and if i didn't know better, i'd swear they did a camera angle revealing she had nothing under her top (IE they showed alot of flesh) pretty risque for 85

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Mike's press conference after his Toxic Shock syndrome was very sad. Mike looks scrawny, pale and quite sad and sickly overall. All his bros keep saying, Oh Mikes great he'll make it back for the Cotton Bowl show in XX many weeks. Mike just looks like "Get me to bed"

 

Then they drag him out a few weeks later at a nearly empty Cotton bowl and that was a bit odd to see, he still looked very frail and Kerry seemed to be helping keep him up. "The Living Miracle" . He looked like Mary Kate Olsen on a diet.

 

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WCCW had a unique business plan, as they would give away their main event matches every week on TV, and then put the same bout on their supercards but added a stipulation to it. I guess it was effective enough

 

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Terry Gordy vs Flair.....Gordy looked PUMPED about being in the match, he's grinning and joking around with the ref dispite being the heel

 

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Fantastics vs Midnight Xpress "Encore matches" after the main events as to not show up the VE's . Funny

 

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Lance VE, oh you imfamous lil headache---

[Guest Arnold_OldSchool]

World Class had every one sit on one side of the Cotton Bowl to give the impression of a packed house, but they frequently flip cameras angles and then you can see the 1000's of empty seats on the other side of the ring

 

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Gotta love Gino Hernandez refering to himself as "The Handsome Half breed" How PC

 

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They make sure to mention "former world champion" before Kerry's name every chance they get...

 

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October 6, 1985 in Dallas, TX

Cotton Bowl drawing 26,000

 

The Fantastics (Fulton & Rogers) beat John Tatum & Dave Peterson when Rogers pinned Peterson.

 

 

The Great Kabuki beat Mark Lewin via DQ.

 

 

Texas Champ Brian Adias pinned Jack Victory.

 

 

Iceman King Parsons beat One Man Gang (3rd Rnd) via countout in a "taped fist" match.

 

 

Kerry & Kevin Von Erich beat Chris Adams & Gino Hernandez (16:00) in a "no DQ hair vs hair" match when Kerry pinned Adams.

 

 

These are a few of the bouts I watched along with stuff from the syndication

 

7+ hours to go

[Guest Arnold_OldSchool]

Rude wins a title within 3 weeks

 

Percy pringle was built up as a bit of a mystery figure, and his early promos he struck me as talking a bit errrr "gay".

 

After losing the Hair match Adams showed up in a mask... classic storyline... What baby gets to rip it off?

[Guest Arnold_OldSchool]

I stopped watching these for a while but I'll get back to it soon enough... All I can say is WOW after seeing Jake last night compared to the svelte figure who battled in WCCW in 85...damn.

 

Only thing i can add about my tapes is that Rick Rude is using a DDT and calling it the "rude Awakening", so I guess he hadn't mastered the neckbreaker yet.

[BUTT 0]

It's amazing that they went downhill so fast, so that within three years they went from drawing around 30K at Texas Stadium in '84 to just a few thousand in '87.

[Guest MikeSC]

It's amazing that they went downhill so fast, so that within three years they went from drawing around 30K at Texas Stadium in '84 to just a few thousand in '87.

Leaving the NWA just as the oil market crashed domestically killed that territory.

 

That and pushing the virtually useless Mike Von Erich as a possible star helped very little.

-=Mike

[Guest Loss]

The glory years for World Class were definitely 1982-1985. Get all the footage you can from this time period. They were the perfect combination of "fresh" and "hot" at this point, and the Von Erichs/Freebirds feud was still going strong. That feud had sort of burned itself out by the end of '84, so they went with Adams and Gino as the top heels, which also drew. When that feud was blown off, there was no one new for the Von Erichs to face. I'm a huge fan of Rude, but when he was WCCW champ, he was far too green, and they had just seceded from the NWA, meaning they could no longer promote Flair's title defenses, which were typically a huge attraction for them. They also didn't have the ability to really exchange talent with other territories to the fullest extent anymore, and they'd lost the Freebirds, who were among the biggest stars in the country, to Watts by '86. Add in the unfortunate drug problems and young deaths that plagued the company, and a local economy gone to shit, and you have a dead wrestling territory.