clintthecrippler

Sorry nerds begging for a return to the Attitude Era, this is as close as you're gonna get.

Yeah, I did an NWA Dallas watch a while back and there was a lot that was actually quite fun - some appearances from Tully Blanchard and Buddy Landell being delightful dickheads, Michael Hayes on commentary shortly before heading into the WWF as Dok Hendrix, early flashes of Ahmed Johnson being a freak athlete, Dick Murdoch being washed in-ring but still a fantastic promo - but Skandor Akbar as babyface manager of Kevin Von Erich (!?!) absolutely did not sit right with me at all. Especially since the attack by Greg Valentine and Black Bart on Akbar that served as the babyface turn got a face reaction for Valentine and Bart from the Sportatorium crowd. I think they realized quickly it just came off weird to both the Sportatorium crowd and whoever was watching the TV at the time (if anyone), they bailed and had Akbar turn back heel and cost Kevin Von Erich the North American title. It probably also didn't help that on average there were maybe 50-100 people in the Sportatorium crowd for each show, and it was also very visible that Kevin Von Erich was going through the motions and that his heart just wasn't into the wrestling thing anymore.

You will probably not be shocked to learn that "fan of real pro sports" Jim Ross referenced the 1979 Pirates on commentary a few times during Iceman's entrances in this era. He kept coming to it for a couple of weeks before switching to Janet Jackson's "Control" as his heel entrance music. Thanks for the sub. Be on the lookout for my next upload 3 to 10 years from now when I want to link to something here and realize "hey, why isn't THIS on Youtube!" Other UWF 1987 music note: Sam Houston is entering the ring to Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song" which immediately made me care about him 1,000 times more than I ever cared about him anywhere else.

I am now through February 1987 of my Mid-South/UWF watch project which means I have watched the UWF Tag Team Title Tournament after Hacksaw Duggan lost a loser leaves town match to One Man Gang, thus vacating the championship held by Duggan and Terry Taylor. The tournament was broadcasted over two weeks of UWF Power Pro Wrestling. I noticed these episodes weren't on Youtube so I went ahead and uploaded them myself, and honestly the booking of this tournament feels like it should be as famous/infamous/notorious as the "All three championships change hands" episode of TV from November 1986. UWF Power Pro Wrestling - Broadcast Date 2/14/1987 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdFhnO-9mA UWF Power Pro Wrestling - Broadcast Date 2/21/1987 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTZseUQ2m3s (note: source video quality is a bit rougher here) Thoughts/observations on the tournament (spoilered here in case anyone flying blind wanted to watch the tournament first): Other observations of UWF through February 1987: Ted Dibiase - goddamn he is incredibly over in his quest to defeat One Man Gang for the UWF Championship, and seems almost as over as Hacksaw Duggan was during his peak. The UWF live crowds are incredibly loud and ready for him to be the next UWF Heavyweight Champion. Given how over he was at the time, I absolutely don't blame him for bolting immediately after the JCP sale. I think if most wrestlers found themselves in that position, went to Japan for six weeks, and came back not only to find out that the UWF was sold but that Dusty put the championship on Big Bubba Rogers, the majority of those wrestlers would have bolted too. Sting - The rising star is starting to get face pops from the TV crowds and on a trajectory where you pretty much HAVE to turn him at some point. Since joining up with Rick Steiner and Eddie Gilbert, he is finally evolving into the franchise player that we would see one year from this time tearing it up with Ric Flair at the Clash of the Champions, and the TV crowds are reacting accordingly for what's been a fun evolution to watch. The departure of Hacksaw Duggan - Duggan was THE top dog in Mid-South Wrestling after JYD left in 1984. The second half of 1986 was a bit rocky for him, as his own Japan bookings and reported money disputes with Bill Watts saw him sidelined to being more of a "special attraction" type wrestler, but he still felt like someone that could have been heated up instantly if someone decided "let's put the UWF belt on Duggan". Him and Taylor are made the UWF Tag Team Champions, but he apparently gave his notice that same week, as the actual title change isn't shown in full and is limited to a clip of the last two minutes, with the only real notable moment being a very awesome tag team match between Duggan/Taylor against Sting/Steiner. Duggan leaving though really does feel like a final blow to the UWF as we know it, even if Dibiase is picking up the slack on the babyface side. The debut of Steve Cox - oh man, the UWF TV debut of Steve Cox is one of the biggest Poochies that has ever Poochie-d. For his debut on UWF TV, he is heavily featured in THREE segments throughout the show. (1) being introduced as the protege of Dr. Death Steve Williams, who advises him to sit at ringside for the whole show and study everything that is happening in the matches, including Dr. Death's match where after he bodyslams his opponent, he pantomimes the motion of showing Cox what he did with his arms on the bodyslam like an instructor (2) Cox staying at ringside for Ted Dibiase's challenge of One Man Gang for the UWF Championship, and jumping into the ring to help Dibiase after interference from Skandor Akbar and counts a visual pinfall for Dibiase. (3) getting challenged to step into the ring by Bill Irwin and Eli The Eliminator, and fending them both off with a little help from Dr. Death and Dibiase. And oh boy, Steve Cox is really rough around the edges with his movement and selling. Watts seemingly thought he could create another Oklahoma-based star like he did years prior with Dr. Death but Steve Cox needed some more cooking before coming out of the oven in such a spectacularly-pushed way. This episode is on Youtube as well and can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krXtG70Z2bw More "proto-Russo" booking - the amount of "we're outta time" matches does seem to be tempered a bit, but that has been replaced almost every week by this run of the UWF finding new ways to just not deliver matches that are advertised at the beginning of the show. One episode includes hype at the beginning of the show for a Duggan/Taylor tag team title defense that gets mucked up by a pre-match attack by Devastation Inc. and the UWF doctors declare Duggan and Taylor unable to wrestle (admittedly, at least this is a call back to the Gordy/OMG angle where they say that Duggan and Taylor don't have to forfeit the match and title because it was UWF doctors that examined them), and a Dark Journey/Missy Hyatt match doesn't happen due to Missy feigning an injury (though Dark Journey attacks her anyway so the crowd still gets some sort of physical confrontation). But every week now it's either "advertised match doesn't happen" OR "we're outta time" and that happening so often I can see that playing a part in people NOT wanting to come out to see UWF live at all, which ties into... A lot of empty red chairs in the crowd at TV - By February 1987, the fans that do show up are lively and loud, but the art of "put ALL the fans on two sides of the building and only shoot those sides" hadn't quite been mastered yet. It is starting to get very visible on both the main UWF TV taped in Tulsa and the Power Pro tapings from Fort Worth that anywhere to 25-50 percent of the floor seats are empty, and while the bleachers are mostly darkened, there's a few shots here and there where you can tell there's not that many folks up there either. I do honestly wonder how much money they sunk into making Power Pro a separate "pro-shot" TV show in Fort Worth. I'm sure the mindset was "more TV equals more stations equals more fans", and I am guessing the strategy of going into the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex was "World Class is losing them, we can win them back" when all these TV tapings really seemed to confirm was that Dallas as a WRESTLING city was officially dead. From the footage of this era that is available, the only market that seems to be doing decent crowd attendance for the UWF is Houston, and we all know how that goes once the JCP sale goes through. Overall, at this stage the weekly TV is still fun to watch despite the more negative aspects noted above, but it's very much the in-ring effort of veterans like Dibiase, Dr. Death, Terry Gordy, and One Man Gang, and the week-to-week growth of Sting and Rick Steiner that are doing that heavy lifting as opposed to strong booking. I had initially planned on stopping my watch with the first JCP-booked episode of UWF TV where Bubba wins the title, but I poked into the weeks that follow and there's three important events that happen on UWF TV in May and June that feel like additional "epilogues" to some stories that start to get told during the final weeks of Watts-era UWF:

Oh man, the Kurt Angle starring vehicle END GAME. I dont know what is more uncomfortable: 1. The simulated rough sex scene that starts the movie where Kurt Angle seems to be channeling what he was suggesting he wanted to do to Sharmell. 2. The scene where Kurt Angle dresses up as a clown for the purpose of kidnapping a special needs child and punches that woman's mother in the face while dressed as the clown. 3. The scene where Kurt Angle assaults a woman while wearing a TNA Bound For Glory t-shirt. What a compellingly terrible piece of movie sleaze. And happy to see the Superjail shout out from CurtMcGirt above. What a beautifully violent spectacle of a show. A fun one to wake up to in the middle of an episode after falling asleep during the Family Guy and King of the Hill reruns that would start the Adult Swim block at that time.

All of you joke about what you'll offer to contribute to the NWA procuring the services of Okada not factoring in that it is very likely that Billy is legit not paying THAT much more to whoever he hires as his new bassist.

One of the few times where the answer to an "either/or" question actually is YES.

Sandman episode, fuck yeah, there better be a re-enactment of what Sandman thought he was seeing while wrestling Sabu while high on hallucinogenics at November to Remember 97 in what of the greatest train wreck matches ever.

I'm pretty sure the "NWA Independent World Title" was a vanity belt that was only defended on shows promoted by Sabu in Michigan/Ohio around 94/95. Those were the shows that were colloquially known on tape lists for many years listed under the banner of "NWA Sabu" though I'm guessing local promotion probably just listed them as "NWA Wrestling" LOL, even Cagematch lists the shows during this time under the promotional banner of "National Wrestling Alliance Sabu" https://www.cagematch.net/?id=8&nr=356&page=4

H20 had a SEVEN HUNDRED LIGHT TUBE death match this past summer in that same room and I love me some deathmatch wrestling but I also can't imagine that even with a wall-wide side lift door open for that show that the air quality in that room by the time the match was over was less than one step down from smoke inhalation. As for the DEAN show itself, I am guessing an Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts vs Fighting Ultimate Crazy Kings 8-man legends tag would break the budget? I am bummed that I don't have my finances together to make a Philly trip happen this year. As someone who dates back to the yellow-and-green days of the board, this would have been awesome to attend live, but I'll do everything I can to be in front of the couch when this streams live on IWTV.

6:66 Glenn was starting to walk back from the full industrial barrage of BlackAcidDevil but still dipping his toes in a little bit so he wasn't quite out of those woods just yet.

So, the vinyl edition of Danzig's 1999 album "666: Satan's Child" is currently the #1 selling physical media music product on Amazon... ...because a bunch of record collectors figured out that due to Amazon fulfillment errors, they would receive a different LP that in many instances would be worth more money. https://boardislife.proboards.com/thread/12920/amazon-danzig-vinyl-mystery-records

Dick Slater, Ken Mantell, and Eddie Gilbert, right? I think it's a reasonable guess that Slater stopped booking when he left the company as a whole (which if he booked his own exit, that's awesome because his final few weeks was an incredible exercise in a heel repeatedly getting embarassed on his way out of the company). Is there a solid timeline for the transition from Mantell to Gilbert? If so, what regime did the 11/15 episode fall under? And feel free to correct me if I missed anyone here. This exploration has been a fun ride, so always happy to ingest more information and/or be corrected if something I post on this era is off.

Yeah, J.R. is one of my favorite announcers of all time but the era of UWF taping TV in the arenas (well, Tulsa 90 percent of the time) definitely sees him ramping up always being in ALL CAPS mode, and there are plenty of matches during this time where that absolutely was not warranted, and in the tag team championship match on this specific episode, him being in "Screamin' Jim Ross" mode just ended up accentuating the lack of crowd heat.

https://youtu.be/Xx3yN0leFCs?si=w0criBpH_bVEAwdC The November 15th, 1986 episode of UWF's main weekly television show, perhaps the most famous start-to-finish episode of the UWF-era of the Bill Watts-owned territory. All three championships - The UWF Heavyweight Championship, the UWF Tag Team Championship, and the UWF Television Championship - all on the line. A very newsworthy episode...but when taken in while watching the weekly TV in order, holy shit is there a TON of whiplash booking here.

"Public Domain Property" put into a rote slasher flick is so boring. I'll come to the theater whenever they re-do "Steamboat Willie" as an existentialist horror psychodrama (perhaps STEAMBOAT WILLIAM directed by Robert Eggars?) or someone drops the character into a raunchy R-rated 1980's-style ski comedy.

This is a VERY fun night of UWF matches at the Sam Houston Coliseum, August 8th, 1986: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV8v7JrwtI9lws6q_-xpQvPoVDQ4hB7Hi 1. Gary Young vs Gustavo Mendoza / 2. Rick Steiner vs Brett Wayne Sawyer / 3. One Man Gang vs Koko B. Ware / 4. Ted Dibiase & The Missing Link vs John Tatum & Jack Victory / 5. The Fantastics vs Eddie Gilbert & Sting / 6. Hacksaw Duggan vs One Man Gang / 7. Terry Taylor, Chavo Guerrero, & Bill Watts vs. The Fabulous Freebirds / 8. 20-Man Two-Ring Battle Royal Side note, I have been continuing my UWF 1986 watch as a continuation of having watched through all of the Mid-South on Peacock. I am now through September 1986, and it's still pretty damn fun. The car occasionally runs rough, but this late in the year it definitely does not feel like a promotion that would be sold off merely six months later, and fully shut down eight months after that. THE GOOD The Fantastics - Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers are easily my MVP's of 1986 UWF at this point, and in all honesty, come off like the most over babyfaces in the entire company as well. Potentially because they're the only top babyfaces that don't disappear for a few weeks for Japan tours, they are featured nearly every week and every match that's against competitive opponents are strong contenders for the best American TV matches that year. The vaunted feud with the Sheepherders is well-regarded as it should be, but there's also an incredible title defense against John Tatum and Jack Victory, and their matches with Eddie Gilbert and Sting are also delivering big, and doing A LOT to get both Eddie and Sting over the hump both in terms of credibility and in-ring performance. Sting - Holy shit, Jim Hellwig leaving the company was absolutely the best thing that could have happened for Sting at this pivotal early stage of his career. Both wrestlers look terrible in their early appearances as a tag team, but when Hellwig leaves, the flower begins to bloom. Not being trapped working in a "Road Warriors"-inspired beatdown tag team, Sting already begins showing some signs of personality being pushed as a singles as a few weeks. But after linking up with Eddie Gilbert and Rick Steiner (who also similarly is becoming more fully-formed by the week) as part of Hot Stuff & Hyatt International, he really starts to show out, and you can see him getting better and better every time he is in the ring with the Fantastics. The screams and howls that we know and love get more expressive, and he starts adding the more high-flying aspect of his offense that would make him stand out as he lost the more unsightly muscle bulk. Watching him develop in 1986 was a similar feeling to watching John Nord/The Barbarian develop in 1985. Eddie Gilbert - after a solid year of start-stop pushes, a babyface tease, and a "manager of foreign menaces" angle that admittedly did have one hot TV angle with the Russian beatdown of Bill Watts but otherwise never really felt earnest and also dragged down by Korchenko and Taras Bulba being super low-end wrestlers, "Hot Stuff" finally shines and feels fully fleshed out being aligned with Missy Hyatt and taking Sting and Rick Steiner under his managerial guidance. The chemistry with Missy in promos is off the charts and it's no shock they ended up becoming an outside-the-ring item, the sniping week-to-week with Tatum over the Hot Stuff and Hyatt International alliance is always entertaining, and being able to brag about taking two up-and-coming stars of the future in Sting and Rick Steiner results in Eddie coming off the most confident that he has been so far on the mic as a heel. Sliding into a manager/wrestler role as well was also a massive help in boosting both his credibility and overall presence on the weekly TV. Michael Hayes on color commentary - finally, the great "Joel Watts problem" is put to rest. The Fabulous Freebirds as a whole was a nice boost to the promotion, but Michael Hayes stepping in as the regular weekly color commentator roles boosted the TV in such a powerful manner. Joel Watts is finally relegated to an off-camera production position (which to be fair, it sounds like that's where his skills shined the most with the video packages and music videos that he had produced over the last couple of years), and the team of Jim Ross and Michael Hayes feels pretty well-worn and on a good rhythm from Week One of the arrangement. Hayes is generally great as a heel commentator as well, going more for the Jesse Ventura route of "heel advocate" but acknowledging when a face is having a great performance in the ring, not spending entire undercard matches only talking about himself or the Freebirds, and not leaning too much on pretending heels aren't cheating during their matches. Just a major breath of fresh air and I'm sure as the national television push was happening, the team of Ross and Hayes came off so much better to new audiences than Ross and Joel Watts, or the few weeks where it was Bill and Joel father-and-son together. Missy Hyatt/Dark Journey - Dark Journey returns as a face after a brief absence when Dick Slater leaves the territory, first feuding with Lady Maxine, but when the latter leaves the territory herself, the timing could not have been more perfect as Missy Hyatt has now arrived with John Tatum, and the two of them end up being perfect foils for each other. Their physical interactions are very much "catfight" spots, but when those spots occur it's also the loudest crowd pop of the show, and damn that energy is infectious when watching week-to-week. And I gotta say, this incarnation of heel Missy Hyatt in 1986 is maybe the absolute best "Missy Hyatt" she ever was on TV. She came off as a natural and so much more comfortable as a snotty "Beverly Hills" rich girl heel than she probably did any other time in her career. WCW spent so much time trying to make her a babyface/talking head/announcer that I honestly wonder if some money and/or TV ratings got pissed away by her not being a heel personality from 1989-1993. And aesthetically, I'll just say that I had to tell myself to "calm down" nearly every time she was on TV. THE MIDDLE: Terry Gordy as the first UWF Champion - I love Terry Gordy. On paper he is a credible choice as the first UWF Champion. But watching his reign play out on the week-to-week TV, outside of taped arena footage of a clean win over Ted Dibiase, they really don't do a helluva lot to attempt making him as credible of a "absolute TOP GUY" champion as Hogan or Flair, and his status as "UWF Champion" as the weeks go on doesn't feel like that much more of a graduation beyond the previous North American Championship. He has televised defenses against Hacksaw Duggan and Steve Williams, but the former ends with a "we're outta time" finish, and the latter ends with a disputed double-pin finish. I also think that it may have been a mistake making the first UWF Champion someone that was part of a larger group or stable. Ric Flair and Jim Crockett could get away with it because while he was definitely part of a dominant group, at the end of the day, Ric Flair was still presented as the undisputed TOP GUY. Gordy on the other hand is presented as an "equal" with Hayes in the Freebirds in a way that I think does some damage to him being the TOP GUY. I couldn't help but shake my head when one week of television saw Michael Hayes on commentary after attacking Ted Dibiase, and as "protection" Gordy and Buddy Roberts were guarding the commentary booth playing lookout duty. Gordy had his UWF Championship strapped around his waist while doing guard duty, and it just seemed super off having your now-national promotion's champion spending an entire episode on lookout duty for your heel announcer. Though I am almost at the point where that reign is about to end... One Man Gang - I love One Man Gang. He comes in with a super-hot angle where his attack on Hacksaw Duggan arguably costs the roughneck the UWF Championship Tournament. But the follow-up from week-to-week is weird and inconsistent. Instead of straight-up murdering jobbers and midcarders sending them off on stretchers, his squash matches are kind of generic, and any competitive matches he has are also inordinately booked into the "we're outta time" slot. The last TV I've watched was 9/20/86, ostensibly heading into the home stretch of where his push towards becoming the new UWF Champion should be beginning, and he does NOT feel like someone that would be the next UWF Champion. Ted Dibiase/Hacksaw Duggan/Steve Williams - All three wrestlers are still very over and Dibiase/Williams are presented in a hot manner as foils for the Freebirds, and they do keep Duggan hot as he chases One Man Gang for revenge, even if I have qualms about how OMG is booked during this time. But the tolls of having all three wrestlers also becoming more in demand from All Japan and New Japan are VERY visible in the weekly TV, with BOTH Dibiase and Williams being overseas for the entire month of July and being very conspicuous in their absence, even with the excuse of an injury angle for Dr. Death. And while I am not as down as Terry Taylor as a face in Mid-South/UWF, him being the only main event singles face that doesn't go away for a Japan payday only goes so far. THE BAD Bill Watts returns for one more "Last Stampede" - Watts returning in 1984 was AWESOME. I enjoyed the hell out of Watts returning to take it to Devastation Inc. and pulling "Midnight Rider" shenanigans against Akbar in 1985. The 1986 return got off to a fantastic start with the Russian beatdown angle, but after the series of JCP/UWF co-promotion shows with Dusty as his partner against the Russians, Watts hangs around aligning himself alongside Dibiase, Williams, and Terry Taylor in brawls and matches with the Freebirds, with Watts and Taylor essentially being stand-ins for Dibiase and Williams for the month they are away, and now it feels it major diminishing returns. The Freebirds came in hot, and Gordy is the UWF Champion, but now they are all feeding for Watts on beatdowns for a month straight. "WE'RE OUTTA TIME!" - As bad of a reputation that 1986/87 Jim Crockett TV has for pulling this stunt, 1986 UWF may honestly have been a much more egregious offender. There are literally EIGHT straight weeks of TV where the main event is "OUTTA TIME". They would do this very occasionally in Mid-South 84/85, but always show the finish the following week. In 1986 during the UWF era, they don't bother with that at all, and to add insult to injury, Jim Ross would be VERY explicit when closing the show about how "you have to come out to see UWF action live". The only time they did show how the match ended the following week during this stretch was when Terry Gordy defended the UWF Championship against Hacksaw Duggan, but even that was a bitter pill because they pulled "WE'RE OUTTA TIME" out of a fucking UWF Championship match that had been hyped for the entire show. Kamala's departure from the UWF - Kamala returned but after only a few months back, got the big offer from Vince to come up to New York to have the run against Hogan. So what do you do if you are the UWF? You show months-old footage on the main weekly television of Duggan beating Kamala in Houston but dub over new commentary promoting that this match was "THE FINAL BATTLE"! Frank Dusek on commentary during the Dr. Death injury angle - They shot the Freebirds piledriving Dr. Death on the floor at an arena show, so instead of Jim Ross being apoplectic selling this angle like Steve Williams got shot to death, we're stuck with Frank Dusek doing voiceover commentary on a special report, and it is one of the worst calls I have ever heard for an injury angle. Dusek's commentary style can be best described as "good at matter-of-factly shouting what's happening no voice modulation in any direction". He steps in on color commentary on a couple of UWF episodes when Hayes has to wrestle a match or work an angle, and really adds nothing to the call. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_20eFRvVnc Overall, while the tires could use some air, this is still a mostly fun show to follow even this late into 1986.

And then they frigging did it AGAIN a couple months later with the handicap match where Chyna wrestles Patterson and Gerald Brisco. They toss powder into her eyes and start pattering at her ass and Brisco straight up does a full boob grab and bullies Patterson into grabbing at them himself and if that wasn't beyond the pale enough, Patterson shook his hands afterwards selling that he was grossed out by it with Cole (assuming a line fed by Vince on the headset) remarking about how "i dont think Patterson likes that!" Even being in the my early 20s during the Attitude Era and eating up the overall style of WWF presentation during that time, that still seemed memorably icky to me even then.

That reminds me of growing up in Michigan in the 80s and 90s and older relatives just casually referring to all wrestling as "Big Time Wrestling" since The Sheik had used that for the Detroit TV show (along with a few other regions throughout the country)

Whats out there for the footage that Larry Matysik put out there himself is 81-83 Wrestling at the Chase that was taped in the studio. The Flair/Brody Broadway and the precious little other "arena" footage from that era primarily exists from All Japan sending production crews during that time period to record matches whenever Giant Baba came over for a US tour or other American stars they were pushing like Brody had major matches, which is how we have that Broadway. Sadly not much else from those loaded arena shows proper exists beyond that on tape. I just took a look at the date for the Flair/Brody poster that was noted earlier in the thread. That show itself was actually from after Sam Muchnick retired in 82, but the cards were still loaded for a while after that. The drop off really doesn't seem to hit until second half of 83 when Matysik splits off from what the new ownership group (which I believe was a consortium of Verne Gagne, Harley Race and Bob Geigel) Matysik then tries to run his own shows (taking Brody with him) in STL for the second half of 1983, but ultimately ends up brokering the deal for the WWF to take the classic Wrestling At The Chase time slot with market-specific tapings initially at the Chase Hotel itself, which ends up being the first real "shot fired" for Vince storming into a vital NWA market, and those tapings being the debut date for Hulk Hogan, who himself had been on quite a few of the St. Louis group's cards in 83. Even into 84 and 85 there are still some loaded shows with the remaining group, with the NWA World Championship still being defended regularly, and stars from the AWA, World Class, and other remaining territories popping in with a little more Central States support, but ultimately the oversaturation of the core St. Louis group running every three weeks and the WWF running their own shows aggressively every few weeks in the early going led to the final "true" St. Louis shows as 85 transitioned into 86, and ultimately Jim Crockett came in to run his own shows as the last alternative option to the WWF for St. Louis wrestling fans.

St. Louis was also pretty much a one-city promotion and not a full loop territory on its own (similar to Paul Boesch with Houston Wrestling and the Tunneys with Toronto/Maple Leaf Wrestling), undercards might be filled out with some folks homesteading in the adjacent Central States territory but the upper half of the cards were almost always the wrestling version of "all-star games" with national stars every 2-3 weeks, and then taping the next few weeks of Wrestling At The Chase TV the following morning I believe. And man, if you want some other variants of "all-star game" booking, take a look at Honolulu results from 1971-1974. While there seemed to be a regular affiliation with the AWA, more often than not any American star that was on his way to and/or from Japan would also be on the bill, multiple shows where the upper half of the card features championships from all over the country being defended, such as one from 1973 where Pedro Morales defends the WWWF Heavyweight Championship and Nick Bockwinkel/Ray Stevens defend the AWA World Tag Team Championship, with Verne Gagne popping in quite a bit to defend the AWA World Championship AND Dory Funk Jr. also popping in on occasion to defend the NWA World Championship.

Darsow's heel turn was so fascinating to watch during the 1983 portion of my Mid-South watch project. Ultimately after the turn the turncoat gimmick veers more into generic "American turned Commie!" vibes, but I love that the start of it isn't Darsow being won over by any political ideology, but simply Darsow being a white meat babyface that had been on a winning streak and then finds himself in awe of how dominant Volkoff was in defeating him, and finding himself wanting to learn what the Russians are doing to attain that type of power in the ring. Oh man, Joshua Stroud, they kept trotting him out for job duty for about a solid year and he never picked up the mechanical aspect of what to do out there. You could tell they thought there might be potential with him as he had a great build but the bell-to-bell never really clicked with him. There's a match in late 84/early 85 with John Nord The Barbarian where Nord is in his first few weeks in the company and still super green and clumsy that may be the worst actual in-ring match of the entire run of Mid-South that's on Peacock. And yeah, early Dr. Death, some of the pieces are there but it's still very much a work-in-progress. He doesn't really become DR. DEATH until summer 1984 when he turns heel and starts getting himself into magnificent shape after graduating college and becoming full-time with Mid-South.

Haha I literally did the same thing after listening to this week's Between The Sheets. I am with you on that, it definitely seemed like somehow Dave got some major wires crossed or straight up got bad intel, it looked like same banners and same front row crowd for the entire match. Me and a friend have been geeking out recently over odd late 80s/early 90s WWF marathon TV taping timeline quirks, notably the lengths they would go to run "live crowd only" angles to get the belt around the waist of someone that wasn't going to officially win the belt until a PPV after that night's taping. Though I think my favorite one that I became aware of recently was finding out that a first round match for the 1990 Intercontinental Championship tournament was taped during Hour One of a Wrestling Challenge taping...the night AFTER the tournament final with Mr. Perfect winning was taped during Hour Three of a Superstars taping!

Isn't the story that GCW on their TV show ran some sort of "letter-writing" campaign (maybe a vote for GCW Wrestler of the Year?) and the office noticed that a very large number of viewer mail was coming from these Midwest areas?