Andrew Lutzke
From Ellbow Productions and Highspots.com
Jim Crockett Sr. was well respected from the 1930’s on as a wrestling and entertainment promoter.
Crockett Sr. drove an old car as to not rub it in to the fans that he was rich.
The first great heel team were the “Dirty Dusek’s” in the 30’s.
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JCP made a lot of money in the 60’s with The Bolos (Assassins) and The Kentuckians.
Talent was hard to get rid of because everybody made a lot of money and Crockett ran 3-4 towns a night, which allowed the workers to stay fresh.
The Kentuckians were giant men and the fans could identify with their hillbilly gimmicks.
Johnny Weaver was a long time star in the tag team ranks and had many partners over the years – primarily George Becker, who worked until he was forced out by age.
J.C. Dykes and The Infernos had a good run under hoods as well. Good workers, but bad bodies led to them covering up with the gimmicks.
Mr. Wrestling 2 was another worker who wore a mask to hide his age.
Memphis promoters used a fake Inferno team along with the real team as they ran two shows a night and wanted headliners on both.
Brute Bernard and Frank “The Angel” Morrell were a pair of ugly heels.
Gene Anderson was a legit Anderson, and then Ole and Lars were added as “brothers” and had a long, long run on top. They were grinders and the fans bought them as bad asses.
John Ringley was picked to run the business after Big Jim. John was married to Francis Crockett, Jim’s daughter. David Crockett was the heir apparent but he wanted to be a worker, so Ringley ran the business.
Supposedly Francis was the smartest of Big Jim’s kids, but she didn’t have the foresight to be born with a penis, and thus couldn’t take over the business.
David worked as “David Finlay” and his father informed the boys that he wanted his son to have no special treatment, so he got as roughed up as much as anyone. David didn’t last long in the ring.
Jim Jr. wasn’t pleased with Ringley being chosen to run his family’s business. Ringley was caught cheating on Crockett’s daughter and was quickly removed from power at that point.
George Scott was brought in as booker. Cornette is not impressed with Scott’s ability, based partially on working for him in 1989 in WCW.
Scott would pick talented guys and ask them whom they wanted to work with.
Wahoo McDaniel saw Ric Flair working prelims on AWA shows and gave Scott the word that he should bring in this young, raw talent.
Johnny Valentine was a hard-hitting, no high spots kind of worker. Cornette is sad he never saw him live.
Wahoo and Valentine beat the piss out of each other and drew tons of money with their brutal matches.
Their feud started turning the company into more of a place for singles wrestlers and that allowed Greg Valentine, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat to come in and become stars.
The NWA had multiple World tag titles. JCP’s had probably the most prestigious version. The U.S. title was created and that too gained major prestige.
Johnny Weaver, The Andersons and others failed to get national magazine coverage because they didn’t leave the area.
Greensboro became a huge market for JCP and the cards were loaded with talent.
Greensboro also hosted the annual Thanksgiving tag team tournament and “The Final Conflict” in 1983 – the card that spawned Starrcade.
Roddy Piper came in 1979 and was much smaller than the usual Crockett heel, but his mouth got him serious heat.
The territory expanded to Cincinnati in 1980. Cornette went to a card there as a fan and saw Piper cheap shotted by a fan – Piper proceeded to beat the tar out of the guy in the aisle.
Ric Flair came in as a 280 pounder and started to show his potential. The infamous plane crash occurred, and Flair returned from that slimmer and morphed slowly into the “Nature Boy” we all know and love.
After a few years, Flair was recognized as a future World champ so he started to travel to St. Louis, Georgia, Florida and other territories to prep him for the big time.
Flair was a top face in JCP and a heel everywhere else.
St. Louis promoter Sam Muchnick loved that Flair would do big bumps on his hard boxing ring.
After Scott left, Ole Anderson, Ernie Ladd, Gary Hart and others all had a hand in booking. Ole was booking JCP and GCW at the same time, which meant he had 2 or 3 TV shows a week to book plus 3-4 house shows a night.
1983-84 was a down period as booking was unsettled and the talent of the late 70’s started to leave.
Dusty Rhodes was hired as the booker. He learned from Eddie Graham to build to big shows, and so Starcade became an annual event, plus The Crockett Cup, and the Great American Bash were born.
Corny thinks Dusty was genius booker and a great worker. Amazing promo. He couldn’t budget money though.
“Dusty would draw $60,000 but spend $50,000 to do it.”
Rhodes ran some finishes into the ground and eventually the fans were annoyed and driven away by the fuck finishes after many years of seeing them.
Memphis would do the same finishes and title changes every night of the week and got away with it because it was isolated. Dusty’s finishes were happening on national TV and thus they were exposed.
As far back as 1983, Cornette knew he wanted to work in JCP. The Midnight Express met Flair and Dusty while working for Mid-South and were set to join JCP in 1984 but Watts convinced them to go to Dallas as part of a talent trade.
The Von Erichs were wrapped up with One Man Gang, Chris Adams and Gino Hernandez and the Express never got to work with them on top for the big money.
The Midnight Express and The Rock and Roll Express came in for JCP the same weekend.
JCP tried running an Atlanta area group and his main group. They sent The Midnights to Atlanta. That experiment only lasted 3 months before Atlanta was closed down.
The Midnights were then moved into a feud with Jimmy Valiant and Ronnie Garvin.
Garvin dressed in drag for part of the angle and The Barbarian unknowingly saw him from behind and started indicating he was turned on.
Cornette was worried that his first big JCP match was going to be a joke as it was a street fight with a man in drag. Dusty got the angle over.
The Midnights ended up working two straight scaffold matches after that at Starrcade 86 and 87, robbing them of being able to have “classic” match on the big stage.
The Road Warriors were heading to Japan, so Dusty booked them to be injured by the Express – the first time Hawk and Animal were booked to be “hurt”.
Dusty changed the match from “scaffold” to “A skywalker match” to add to the hype. Starrcade ’86 ended up being the first JCP event to gross a million dollars.
Scaffold matches usually had been 14 foot tall. The Starrcade ’86 scaffold was 24 feet tall.
The plan was for Eaton, Condrey and Bubba to all catch Cornette, but after Corny saw how high it was, he decided that 3 guys catching him would be dangerous and told Bubba to do it alone and roll with the momentum instead of trying to catch Corny.
Cornette was injured earlier in the night when interfering in a Ron Garvin/Bubba match. So Jim went to the top of the scaffold knowing he was going to have to fall off with his knee already tweaked.
Eaton sprained his ankle taking the bump.
Bubba lost Cornette in the lights and failed to catch him. Cornette tore his cartilege and blew out his knee. Cornette was knocked out legit from the fall.
Cornette was in shock and didn’t feel the pain until the next day. He woke up in extreme pain and was rushed into surgery.
The VHS tape of the match sold like crazy.
TBS aired Ole’s GCW on Saturday morning, Vince’s WWF on Saturday night and Bill Watts’ Mid-South on Sunday afternoons. JCP paid Vince a million dollars to take over the famous 6:05 timeslot and in essence saved the WWF’s business, which ultimately killed their own.
The ’85 Bash show drew 30,000 fans headlined by Nikita Koloff vs. Ric Flair. This spawned the Great American Bash tour the next year.
Trying to run stadiums all over the place was over reaching and some major money was lost in certain places.
The Philadelphia promoter screwed JCP out of at least $100,000 from what Cornette can figure based on the attendance and ticket prices. When the Bash started, the boys thought they were going to have 14 Starrcade-like pay offs. It fell short of those lofty ideals.
They booked the Superdome for 2 shows on the same day for “Crockett Cup ‘86” – the New Orleans area was dead for wrestling and the show did poorly.
For “Crockett Cup ’87” they ran Baltimore on back-to-back nights and did well. ’88 was done in North and South Carolina and also drew well.
War Games drew great with the Horsemen vs. Dusty’s Army. Rhodes was able to restrain from over using the match and keeping it special.
Magnum T.A. passed Cornette and the Express on the road on the fateful night of his accident.
T.A.’s injury made everyone concerned, as he was the next big thing in the business. The guys also all drove constantly as well and anyone of them could have an accident like his next.
Chicago was a hot market for JCP but moving Starrcade there was a huge mistake. Chicago sold out and was still several 100K less in money than what was drawn in their home market the year earlier for Starrcade. The local media also ignored the event.
In 1988 the Great American Bash expanded to 40 events in 45 days and signs were there that the business was turning around. JCP was way in the hole and sold to Turner instead of fighting Vince into bankruptcy.
JCP bought up Florida, the UWF and other groups and expanded the TV market in hopes of being big enough to attract national ad revenue. The costs of paying for the TV was never made up with ads or touring the towns.
Jim Crockett moved to Dallas after selling to Turner because he had heat in the family for giving up Big Jim’s business.
Dusty didn’t do a UWF vs. NWA “war” because JCP was already in a real war with Vince.
The Blade Runners (Sting/Warrior’s rookie gimmick) were so bad, that the boys in Memphis watched their matches because of the sheer wretchedness.
Business slowed in the Fall of 1987, right as JCP was spending millions buying TV time and other promotions.
Cornette blames Jim Crockett for not curtailing Dusty’s spending, not Rhodes for planning things that cost money.
JCP never expanded their office staff to meet the suddenly giant business and their accountant was in over his head.
Cornette convinced Dusty to bring in the Fantastics in early 1988 because the Midnight Express were losing money because they didn’t have a program and were just treading water.
The Express signed a contract for 100K a year – then another deal netted them 225K a year.
Memphis traded The Rock and Roll Express, Bill Dundee and The Midnight Express to Watts for Jim Neidhart, Rick Rude and a few others. Memphis had a 45-man roster at this point.
The Rock and Roll Express vs. Midnight Express feud ignited a series of sellouts in JCP in ’86.
Corny says he can no longer cut the same promos because he will lose his wind, and he will no longer fall down on purpose.
Final thoughts:
Jim Cornette can read a phone book and make it entertaining. That being said, someone like me who has devoured wrestling history will not learn much about the era by listening to Cornette re-tell the tales of JCP’s downfall.
I should also note that the interview was apparently done for a different planned project, perhaps for JCP: The Good Ol’ Days that I reviewed here:
I should also note that the production values are a little shoddy on this interview as well as the interviewer is not mic’d well and I had to turn the TV way up to hear him, and then Corny was blaring. The interviewer also rushed Cornette at times right as he was getting lathered up on a subject, boom, we switch topics.
This series also includes interviews with Magnum TA, JJ Dillon, The Crocketts and others and they will all be covered in the next few weeks.
