Cristobal Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Wrestling was better, sure, but the WWF's production values were way better than what Crockett was putting out, it was in more homes, like L_W_P mentioned. Also they were touring nationally, so people had the opportunity to see them live. And last but not least, they did a really good job identifying a target demo and marketing to it. We can look back through adult eyes and recognize the ridiculousness of the Bushwackers and Hacksaw and Koko B. Ware, but to a kid that was great entertainment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Nature Boy Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 It's a shame that Vince had Dick Ebersol in his pocket and access to the major markets. If JCP had been the dominant promotion in the 80s, the business would be better off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Lord Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 It's a shame that Vince had Dick Ebersol in his pocket and access to the major markets. If JCP had been the dominant promotion in the 80s, the business would be better off. In an alternate universe, JCP got SNME and just imagine some of the crazy Ric Flair/Dusty stuff that could have happened on national television. So I watched the first episode uploaded earlier. It says Febuary, but Ronnie Garvin says 1986 will be his year, so I assume they just labled the show wrong? Is that Superstars on TBS show in the WWE vault somewhere? Was it like Crockett's attempt to try and do his own SNME? It looked like some fun stuff with the clip with the Russians and The Midnights winning the tag titles. But yeah watching this show there were so many things that could be copied and used today to liven up the WWE. A Paul Jones type with an entire stable of low carders and that one guy that you know is going to be huge. Roman Reigns needed to be 1985-86 Nikita instead of 88-89 Luger. The WWE also desperatley needs a Tully Blanchard. I bet Seth Rollins could pull it off. He sort of was when he was throwing his money around (buying J&J the car and stuff). I just loved everything about Tully Blanchard Enterprises with his administrative assistant JJ Dillion who handled all of his finances, travel, and other arrangements. I mean he had to. You could see how coked out Tully was under those glasses. The New Day need a Rock N' Roll Express to be their foils. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenalysis Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 the New Day needs Von Erichs. They are a lot more Freebirds than Midnights. Big E= Gordy Kofi=Roberts, and Xavier=Hayes Can we get Sasha as the Angel of Death? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 It's a shame that Vince had Dick Ebersol in his pocketYeah, um...I'm pretty sure Ebersol wasn't in the pocket of anyone besides the owners of NBC. And it was never as if NBC was thinking "which wrestling promotion should we get involved with?" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Nature Boy Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 It's a shame that Vince had Dick Ebersol in his pocketYeah, um...I'm pretty sure Ebersol wasn't in the pocket of anyone besides the owners of NBC. And it was never as if NBC was thinking "which wrestling promotion should we get involved with?" That begs a good question, how did NBC get involved with the WWF? In any event, Vince had the major advantage of being in the major markets and having a mainstream friendly talent in Hulk Hogan. MTV and NBC latched onto the New York wrestling product and off they went. If you actually watch the two shows, Crockett had a far superior show with far superior talent. But maybe it's just my tastes. In my opinion, WWE would be wise to copy the old WCW formula. If wins and losses don't matter and they want character driven stories, just bring back squash matches. I'd rather see some local indy guys get their asses handed to them than watch a bunch of midcarders trade wins. It would also keep more people strong. Watching the first November WCW though, I admire the attention to detail. Getting a doctor to show off a cast that Dusty could wear to make it through his match? You'd never see that today. Magnum TA wanting an "I Quit" Match against Tully Blanchard and the authority figure saying no because the level of hatred between the two men makes it too dangerous? Great way to get over that there is someone in charge without having them be the evil omnipresent authority figure. This is a really great wrestling program and it's a shame that WWE doesn't do this type of stuff. You get rid of the blood in 1980s Crockett and it can easily be PG and would fit what WWE wants to do today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Crockett had a much better wrestling show that plays much better to wrestling fans. But for all we mock Vince for his "I'm in the entertainment business" bullshit, be had a show that fit right alongside Saturday morning cartoons, that played much better to seven year old kids while being slick and sleek and modern looking and nonthreatening to parents. The much better TV coverage helped, definitely, but Vince won because he marketed his show to a massively larger potential audience and got them onboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 i grew up on WWF because it was, for all intents and purposes, the only game in town. i remember watching Superstars every weekend. i remember the few times i ran into non-WWF shows (these would've been later day AWA stuff) it wasn't the same and didn't have anybody as good as WWF (at least to my 7 year old eyes). i didn't even know NWA was a thing until the very late 80s, and even then we didn't get the show anyway. And then Ric Flair came to WWF and i hated him. gave me no reason to check out any other promotion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramsey Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I had both WWF and NWA television and even got to see WWF a few time when the house show tour still hit Boise. That said, me and the few friends I had that followed wrestling at the time LOVED the NWA stuff. We were all Horseman marks. Parents may have helped the younger kids pick Koko B. Ware over Tully Blanchard but, fuck that, we wanted our wrestling gritty, bloody, and bad ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Growing up in Toronto, I grew up watching WWF (and I think I have very vague memories of JCP era Maple Leaf Wrestling). My first exposure to JCP/Crockett was World Wide Wrestling...and the first show had Magnum vs Wahoo for the US title in a cage. After watching jobber TV on Superstars and Challenge, my mind was blown. I think my NWA fanhood was cemented when we started to get NWA Pro on Saturday afternoons starting in id like to say early 88. To this day Jim Ross & Bob Caudle is one of my fave announce teams. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I grew up on World of Sport Wrestling. The first time I saw American Wrestling (which would be WWF syndicated shows in, like, 87) I thought it was some sort of bad joke and that none of them could wrestle at all. The second time I saw any (WCW Worldwide 1992) I thought it was really good. They had this really cool guy called Flying Brian Pillman and a really crazy Billy Conolly looking bloke called Cactus Jack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.H. Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Crockett was running 3 shows on TBS by 86. The early Saturday (8;05AM) morning show, the Saturday night show (6:05PM-8:05PM unless there was a Braves game) and the Sunday "Best of Show" (7:05PM). Sometime stuff from the Saturday morning show would carry over ot the Saturday evening show to further undercard angles (man that Saturday AM show had so much Jimmy Valiant/Paul Jones Army stuff!) James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I started watching as a teen. After a few weeks of wwf, i saw crockett and switched brand loyalty then and there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 Was the Saturday morning show shot in the studio too? Are there any Saturday morning shows on YouTube or DM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I was curious about the WCW shows they put up, because like a lot of folks, I didn't have cable until the LATE 80s, and by then my initial wrestling phase was done. I really enjoy the workout/squash match followed by a promo from the non-jobber wrestler/team. It almost makes it seem like WCW was shot in a gym, and the wrestlers were all keeping in shape between important matches by beating up jobbers for a few minutes. I may get pulled in to mid 80s JCP yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I grew up in Jersey with no cable and had just WWF. Around 84-85 suddenly we had started having everything pretty much. NWA , World Class, AWA/ Pro Wrestling USA, then when U 68 was on we got more of all of that and Watts. I got cable then Saturday Night NWA onTBS and AWA on ESPN as well as WWF on MSG Network. I never stopped watching one promotion or another because they were never on at the same time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I started watching around 1989 or it might have been 1990 but my dad had taped stuff from '89. It was mostly WCW Saturday Night (this is how I became a Braves fan) and WWF Superstars in the morning but then I branched out and started finding the other shows. I also watched AWA when that was on. I think that was also like Saturday morning. Then GWF on ESPN every afternoon. I never really preferred one promotion to another. I liked the violence of NWA/WCW but I also liked the larger than life characters of WWF. I'm one of the few in my group of friends who grew up with WCW. Most of them only started watched WCW during the nWo days. I ordered PPVs from both companies, usually the major shows. If I did well in school then my parents would get me a PPV lol. I did take a break from wrestling from '95 to sometime in 1997 because I started playing football and baseball and just lost interest in what they were doing. I missed the beginning of the whole nWo and Monday Night Wars thing but one of my buddies kept telling me it's cool shit so I tuned in and immediately I was hooked. So of course I started watching WWF again also and now at this point I much preferred what WWF was doing. I was huge into Canada vs. USA and Austin and DX. Then I started watching ECW also because my buddies would order the PPVs. There was this really awesome video store in town that had VHS tapes from the early to mid 80s of NWA and WWF so that's how I read up on that era. I also ended up renting all the PPVs I missed from 1995 to '97 and I saw that I didn't miss much. Yuck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonteCarl Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I preferred WWF to NWA as a 10 year old in the mid-80s because WWF looked more big league. Their shows were in arenas with several thousand people. NWA's weekly show was shot in a tiny studio in front of about 50 people. They always seemed bush league to me because of their lower production values. I would still watch NWA on occasion, because I liked any wrestling I could watch, but was always a WWF guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted November 30, 2015 Share Posted November 30, 2015 I might've thought the same thing if I saw World Championship Wrestling first...but Pro and Worldwide were always shot in arenas and was comparable to WWF TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew8798 Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 SMW and Mid-South are now on the network Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Casey Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 Now that I can get into, especially Smoky Mountain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 Have they uploaded any mid south or smw yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramsey Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 As I was passing out last night, I saw that they had four or five SMW episodes up. The header for Mid-South was up but not shows yet. Oh please Wrasslin' Gods, keep the old school tape libraries coming for us old fuckers who don't care about who just wants to have fun and put smiles on the faces of the WWE Universe... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hammerva Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 Last I checked the Roku wasn't updated but the web site had 3 or 4 mid south shows (random dates) and 5 Smokey Mountain shows (again random dates). Given the shows shown, it makes me wonder if they are doing something with Jericho because it is mostly shows that feature the Thrillseekers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramsey Posted December 1, 2015 Share Posted December 1, 2015 I hope not. They posted some KILLER Mid Atlantic stuff last year during Black History Month and then pulled it once February was over. Speaking of which, if more Mid-Atlantic pops up or some Georgia Championship Wrestling, I'll officially become a shut in. Like milk bottles full of pee and tissue boxes for shoes level shut in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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