|
|
|
|
|
Submitted by SkittleZ on Friday, November 21, 2008 at 2:37 AM EST
 Like Father, Unlike Son In 1982, Vince McMahon Jr. bought the WWF from his father for a reported $25,000. McMahon Sr. was a respected promoter and still had a great relationship with the NWA. Despite not being a part of the NWA, McMahon Sr. honoured the tradition of staying within his boundaries. But McMahon Jr. had other ideas. Vince knew that if his father even suspected what he was planning to do with the family business, he would have never been sold the company. Vince Sr. wanted to retire and trusted his territory to the hands of his son, Vince “Mr.” McMahon. McMahon believed that the style of wrestling – as he called it “sports entertainment” – would work on a national platform. Television stations had started to broadcast nationally and McMahon believed that wrestling could survive with all the major programs. The first problem he ran into was cost. He needed more money so he did something no one in the industry thought was possible - he sold advertising during his shows. He made business deals to advertise products and services on his shows and during the commercial breaks. This brought in a large profit and allowed Vince to take the next step in his plan. Going National Now Vince had enough money to start going national. There were two ways to actually get a wrestling show seen across the country. The first way was to convince local television stations to broadcast your show. This would be very expensive to mail tapes to the stations and hard to convince local stations that your product would draw viewers. Plus controlling and monitoring how your product is being handled from a long distance is very difficult. McMahon decided to go the easier route. He simply took over neighbouring territories and then expand from there. But exactly how he did it was truly unique. It was a simple three-step procedure. Step One – Offer to buy out the territory. McMahon would meet with the territory’s owners and offer to purchase the promotion. The monetary offer was usually fair and some, like Frank Tunney and Stu Hart, accepted the offer because of financial difficulties. Most of the other promoters saw McMahon’s offer as a joke and told him to leave. They believed that McMahon’s WWF could never be successful in their territory nor did they think that Vince McMahon Sr.’s son would actually be so bold as to cross their boundaries. So when the promoter declined his offer, he went on to step two. Step Two – Acquire talent and infiltrate territory. McMahon would offer jobs to the territory’s top talent and offer them double or sometimes triple what they were already making. Since wrestlers wrestled to feed their families and pay for their houses, they would have been foolish not to join the WWF. This left the territory without their main draws. Then, almost immediately, the WWF would start to run shows in the same cities on the same days as the original promotion would. Fans would see their favourite wrestlers on the WWF card and go to the WWF show. Ticket sales for the home promotion suffered greatly and could only then rely on the television revenue to keep the territory alive. Enter step three. Step Three – Buy the television time. After running a couple of weeks worth of shows in the territory, McMahon would approach the television station that carried the home promotion’s television show and buy out the time that it aired. It wasn’t hard. Televisions studios back then were paid by the promoters to air their show. Let’s say the territory paid the television station $1,000 to air their show. McMahon would come in and offer to air a “better quality program” and pay $3,000 for the same timeslot. The station held no loyalties to any promotion and would go with whoever gave them the most money. So without a television show to promote their house shows and no headlining names, it was only a matter of time until the promoter had no choice but to close their promotion. Of course, once that happened, McMahon did his best to sign the rest of the talent. McMahon spread his WWF promotion through the smaller promotions across the United States and Canada. Pretty soon, there were four major promotions left – WWF, WCCW, AWA, and the NWA. Birth of the Real American On January 7th, 1984, the WWF held a show at Madison Square Garden that would forever change the industry. The Iron Sheik had become the WWF Heavyweight Champion just one month prior by ending Bob Backlund’s six year reign. The Iranian Hostage Crisis was making headlines all over North America. The Iron Sheik was public enemy number one. The WWF was being held hostage by an Iranian madman led by one of the greatest managers of all time, Ayatollah Blassie. The fans were dying for a hero. That night, they got one. “The winner of the match and new World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion, The Incredible Hulk Hogan!” Howard Finkel’s announcement sent a jam-packed Madison Square Garden into a frenzy. “Hulkamania” started in the AWA but it finally achieved superstar status that night. Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon had begun what would later be called the “Rock N’ Roll” Era in the WWF. And it almost didn’t happen at all. Verne Gagne trained the Iron Sheik and because the bonds between mentors and students were very strong at the time when Gagne learned that Sheik was going to drop the belt to Hogan, Gagne saw an opportunity to gain a measure of revenge for Hogan leaving his company. Gagne offered Sheik $100,000 not to drop the title and to break Hogan’s leg. Sheik refused and dropped the title as planned. Had Sheik taken Gagne’s offered, there’s no telling what would have become of Hogan and Hulkamania. The WWF changed into more family friendly entertainment show with Saturday morning cartoons, music videos, and colourful merchandise to back it up. Even their wrestling shows were done differently. All other companies recorded their shows in small, dimly lit arenas. The WWF was able to sell out major arenas and made sure the ring, entranceway, and crowds were well lit in order to produce a higher quality television show. A television show they would take into hostile territory. Black Saturday In 1982, Georgia Championship Wrestling became the first NWA territory to get a cable television deal when they debuted their show World Championship Wrestling on Ted Turner’s TBS Superstation. In 1984, primary GCW shareholders Jerry and Jack Brisco sold their stake in the company to McMahon in exchange for $900,000 and guaranteed jobs with the WWF (Jerry Brisco still holds his job to this day). The buyout gave the WWF full control of World Championship Wrestling and on Saturday, July 14, 1984, Vince McMahon walked onto the World Championship Wrestling set and introduced WWF matches and superstars. The fans in the southern United States rejected the WWF’s “yankee” wrestling show. They were loyal NWA fans and balked at this newcomer’s circus show. The ratings for World Championship Wrestling tanked. Furthermore, World Championship Wrestling turned into a clip show featuring matches previously taped from past WWF shows. Ted Turner was not happy with this, as he wanted fresh, new matches. Turner took McMahon to court but the court sided with McMahon stating that nowhere in their contract did it state that McMahon had to provide new content. Knowing that Turner probably wouldn’t be a stable business partner, McMahon sold the World Championship Wrestling television show – but not the GCW company – to Jim Crockett. Jim Crockett had dreams of creating his own national promotion in order to compete with McMahon and the WWF. He combined the North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and St. Louis territories into what became synonymous with “the NWA”. Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) would later merge with the Kansas, Missouri, Iowa territories and made business relationships with Florida and the United Wrestling Federation (covering Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, North Texas, and Louisiana). This new “super territory” flew under the name of the NWA. WrestleMania In March of 1985, the WWF attempted to establish themselves as the number one promotion in North America by debuting a new pay-per-view concept, WrestleMania. McMahon spent almost every dollar he had into creating this supercard headlined by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T taking on “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff. Celebrities like Cyndi Lauper, Billy Martin, Liberace, and Muhammed Ali were brought in to give the show a mainstream appeal and to help with promotion. WrestleMania wasn’t without difficulties. Threats of bombs being placed in Madison Square Garden were mailed and phoned in to WWF head office. There were rumours among NWA supporters that assassination plans were being hatched against Vince McMahon and his family. Fortunately, all of these threats never came to fruition and WrestleMania was a colossal success. The WWF had just taken the next step in cementing themselves as the number one wrestling company. Fighting Back The NWA, AWA, WCCW, and CWA weren’t going to just let the WWF take over professional wrestling. All four promotions both individually and jointly attempted to quell the success of the WWF with their own pay-per-view caliber supercards. SuperClash III – A joint production of the AWA, WCCW, CWA, and Powerful Women of Wrestling. SuperClash III was a huge financial achievement but the promoters fought backstage. None wanted their talent to be overshadowed by another organization’s talent. This lack of willingness to work together caused SuperClash III to be a one night only success. Clash of the Champions – On the same night that the WWF put on WrestleMania IV, the NWA promoted a supershow called Clash of the Champions. The promotional draw of this card was that all of the NWA titles would be defended against top contenders in all the divisions. The card was a success but failed to put a dent into the WWF’s momentum. Team Challenge Series – The AWA attempted this rather unique wrestling card. The entire AWA roster was divided into three teams. The teams competed in a series of gimmick matches and traditional matches with gimmicky names in order to win points. The team with the most overall points at the end of the competition won $1,000,000. Two of the matches were the “Behind The 8-Ball Battle Royal” and “The Great Turkey Hunt” (basically a Stuffed, Uncooked Turkey on a Pole Match). Throughout the entire card, no one – not even the commentators – knew exactly how many points each team had or who was winning. The matches were entertaining but the overall night was confusing. Eric Bischoff, an AWA interviewer at the time, has long been credited (or accused) of creating the Team Challenge Series but it was actually hatched from the brain of Verne Gagne and his son Greg. The End of the Territories Vince McMahon and the WWF had found the secret formula and no one could compete. The AWA was forced to close when Verne Gagne lost Lake Minnetonka – a piece of property he was borrowing money against – to local governments. WCCW and the CWA were merged into the United States Wrestling Association (USWA) owned by Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett. The USWA remained active until November of 1996 but it was never big enough to compete even on a regional level with the WWF. This left only the NWA. Ted Turner purchased the World Championship Wrestling television show and then purchased Jim Crockett Promotions which gave him full control of the NWA. The company changed its name to World Championship Wrestling (WCW). WCW separated themselves from the NWA name in 1991. The Territory Era was over. There was one big name in professional wrestling and it was the WWF. The business was changed forever. Soon guaranteed contracts, catering, and wrestling schools run by WWF jobbers replaced the horrendous road life and one-on-one personal training from a grizzled veteran. Small towns were replaced by major city arenas. Regional wrestling programs became national television show. Wrestling became sports entertainment. This era was the foundation of today’s wrestling industry. There are thousands of road stories most of which have never been documented. It was an era that had more importance than it ever gets credit for. It was the era of the Territories. Well that's the final chapter in our look back at the Territory Era. I hope you all enjoyed it. And thank you once again to those who gave me the opportunity to appear on the Main Page. Speaking of which . . . MY BIG ANNOUNCEMENT - Starting with my next column, I will officially be the newest Main Page Columnist. It's very exciting as I have been coming to this site for wrestling rumours and columns since 1999. I was inspired by the likes of Mr. Tito, DaveyBoy, Xanman, Hustle, my boy Skitz, and all the other great columnists. For my Main Page debut, I'll be sending another wrestling superstar to After School Detention. It's a column I've been wanting to do for a long time. Well that's about it. I always appreciate (and thrive) on feedback so please don't hesitate to send me some even if you hated it. Let me know by emailing me at trcowfoou@yahoo.com Until next time, class dismissed.
|
|