Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Kayfabe Commentaries. Hosted by Jim Cornette. The special guest is JJ Dillon.
We open with Cornette doing a brief overview of the history of JCP.
Jim Crockett Sr. had a territory that did steady business but never provided WOW numbers. Sr.’s death led to new leadership and eventually Jim Jr. taking over. The attempts to expand to keep pace with the WWF in the mid-80’s first saw great success, but ultimately mismanagment led to the collapse of the whole business. This is the story that JJ Dillon and Corny will attempt to breakdown over the next 3 and ½ hours.
Dillon worked for JCP as an in ring talent and later as a manager, so he can offer a unique perspective.
Jim Crockett Sr. started as a hardware salesman before branching out as a promoter where he used ice skating, the Globetrotters, baseball, concerts and other such things to bring entertainment to the Mid-Atlantic area. Wrestling was always his bread and butter though.
Dillon was raised in New Jersey and grew up watching the WWWF with Bruno Sammartino. Once he became a wrestler in 1971 he worked for JCP.
Jim Sr. was a giant man who always wore suits. He was beloved in the community. JCP ran the same arenas weekly and Sr. could often be found in the back of the arenas watching the action.
JCP ran smaller towns and rarely used nationally known talents. The wrestlers in the area became stars to the people in the south who saw these warriors weekly.
JCP was a unique entity in the wrestling business since one family controlled the business for over 50 years.
We get an extended clip of Jim Cornette’s personal stash of Crockett footage which sees Harley Race in a title defense against Dick Murdoch. (I found this to broke up the flow of the shoot too much and should have been added on as an extra if they wanted to use long footage clips.) There was no build to this clip, so it came across as somewhat randomly tossed on. The fans are bombastic in their support for Murdoch. We see around 5 minutes of a thirty-minute bout.
Jim Sr. joined the NWA but never made a stink about grabbing power within the alliance.
Cornette talks about the tag teams who made up the Mid-Atlantic main event scene in the early 70’s and that transitions us to our second clip which is of a Dory Funk Jr. vs. Johnny Weaver World title match. The crowd is going bonkers over headlocks and armbars.
JCP ran three different states and often times had two or three shows running a night.
We get a clip of Ric Flair and Greg Valentine vs. Ole and Gene Anderson. This clip goes for over 5 minutes as well.
Geogre Becker was booking and that led to him staying on top of the card a tad longer than warranted.
Thanksgiving night and Christmas day were the only “big” shows JCP planned for the year where they’d rent a larger building.
When Tony Atlas broke into the business, his first stop was a JCP house show. Security wouldn’t let him in the place so he had to buy a ticket at the front office. This transitions into a clip of Ken Patera vs. Atlas. This clip also runs about five minutes.
Several of the wrestlers became local promoters for JCP after their wrestling days were through.
Dillon’s first match in the territory was against Gene Anderson. It served as a litmus test to see if Dillon could hang with the big boys.
Wrestling was banned from taking place on Sundays during the 70’s.
Jim Sr. died and Jim’s son-in-law John Ringley was put in charge of JCP. Jim’s had 4 kids but none were ever seen around the business. David Crockett did briefly become a wrestler but his mother made him quit out of fear of injury. Corny has tape of David wrestling, and we see clips of that as well.
Dillon made over 250 dollars a week in the early 70’s working for JCP. By his second year he was making over a hundred dollars more a week.
Ole Anderson was making over 300K a year as a booker and headlining two different territories.
Jerry Lawler was making up to four grand a night while working in Memphis in the early 80’s.
George Scott came in as booker and changed the territory from one that was loaded with tag teams to one that had hard hitting single matches with Wahoo McDaniels, Johnny Valentine and others on top.
John Ringley cheated on his wife and was ousted from power. This put Jim Jr. in charge of JCP.
We get clips of Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair that goes on for around five minutes.
Dillon puts over Dusty Rhodes as a talent in the ring, on the mic and in the back as a booker.
They cover how Johnny Valentine’s stiff work gave him credibility. Wahoo McDaniel came in and they pounded the shit out of each other. We get a clip of that match too!
The promotion added more titles to the scene and increased their merchandising output to go along with adding more talent such as Ric Flair.
The touring NWA champion concept is discussed and Corny and Dillon explain how you only saw the World champ a handful of times over the year.
We see a clip from Florida of Eddie Graham promoting a Dory Funk Jr and Jack Brisco match coming to JCP with the World title on the line.
Corny puts over Dory Funk Jr’s drawing ability and how he and Brisco caused Florida to run in bigger arenas to accommodate the crowds. Funk also worked in Texas Stadium against Fritz Von Erich.
Cornette believes booker George Scott is overrated and merely had such a surplus of talent that it would be hard not to make great feuds.
We get clips of Flair facing off with Blackjack Mulligan. This goes on for about 7 minutes.
Business boomed in the mid-70’s and the main eventers were making 150K a year.
We jump to clips of Paul Orndorff and Jimmy Snuka squaring off with Ric Flair and Greg Valentine.
The local cops usually let the wrestlers go for speeding because the guys were stars and the police understood the guys had to travel fast and furious.
The early 80’s saw JCP buy a TV truck in order to tape around different arenas.
Business started to peter out in the early 80’s but a Ricky Steamboat/Jay Youngblood vs. Sgt. Slaughter/Don Kernoodle feud reignited the territory and set the stage for the concept of Starrcade to be developed.
Dillon explains how he left Florida to become a booker/promoter for the Mari-times territory. A few months in, Dillon realized this wasn’t going to work and he called Dusty for his job back. Rhodes revealed that The Dream was about to jump to JCP to be the booker and he wanted Dillon in to be an on air and behind the scenes talent.
Buddy Landell overslept during a early TV taping once Dusty took over and Tully Blanchard ended up getting his spot and a mega push.
Jim Crockett Jr was caught off guard by the Horsemen getting mega over.
Flair and other heels were worried that the heels didn’t get enough heat on the babyfaces as they ended up beaten and bloody on a great many house shows. Jim Jr. smoothed over the waters but Rhodes went back to the same routine a few months later.
David Crockett blamed Rhodes’ booking for JCP going belly up. Dillon can’t agree with this logic. Dillon relates that Dusty did a recent photo op with David at a fan fest and was a professional.
Jim Crockett Jr. has avoided the business for much of the past 25 years. Jim Jr, blamed himself for the company collapsing as he was the guy that okayed Rhodes’ spending.
Jim Jr. needed two months to straighten everything out when JCP went in the red but he sold to Turner in spite of his family’s wishes.
Only two years after Vince McMahon attempted his national expansion, the only group that had the talent to compete with him was JCP.
In 1986 JCP pushed their territory to the limit as they started working shows in the mid-west and the west coast.
JCP grossed 21 million dollars in 1986. They squandered the money on buying dead territories, airplanes, running stadiums and other such things and by late 1987 they were in financial peril.
An attempt to expand the Great American Bash in 1987 cost JCP a lot of money as they toured for 45 days in arenas and areas that were not all rabid supporters of the company.
Crockett tried to buy up lots of TV to attempt to earn national TV ad rates that were not to be.
Dillon says the UWF buyout was botched as they debuted too much new talent at once and barely anyone got a chance to get over.
Eddie Graham didn’t like the concept of running a quarterly big show such as Starrcade because he felt it hurt the business in the immediate aftermath of the event.
Starrrcade 86 drew 1 million dollars in one night.
1987 saw JCP leave the Carilonas to a home office in Dallas in order to take advantage of the status symbol that coming from a big city would create. That same logic led to them leaving the south and running Starrcade 87 in Chicago, which bombed.
They cover how Vince blocked JCP’s first two PPVs from being carried nationwide. Then JCP ran a free Clash show opposite of Wrestlemania 4 and that finally forced the cable companies to let JCP on PPV unabated. By that point though JCP was well in the red and it was too late.
Corny speculates that Rhodes was burnt out as a booker by having so much extra TV to book in 87 after JCP took over so many territorial contracts.
Dillon opines that JCP used the same small office in the 70’s that they had in the 80’s when business had exploded which overwhelmed the bean counters.
Cornette and the Midnight Express got a 100K raise for each of them only weeks before Jim Jr. realized that his company was several million in the hole.
Crockett had been promised increased revenue from TBS as well as national ad rates and neither of those things came to fruition in time to save the company.
Merchandise money that Vince earned from toys, clothes, etc was a big difference maker in McMahon being able to out bid JCP on talent.
Cornette thought the Turner buyout was going to lead to the WWF going under since JCP could be relied on to deliver good wrasslin’ and Turner would grease the wheels for PPV, merchandising etc. Then one of the first thing the Turner suits did was get rid of Rhodes and start hiring a series of goofs to mess with the wrestling shows.
Dillon is aghast that Bischoff didn’t protect the 6:05 Saturday Night Wrestling tradition once Nitro came around.
Final thoughts: If you’ve watched The Crockett Diaries, JCP: The Good Ol’ days or the WWE’s documentary on the fall of JCP, then you know the story they told here. But if you want to enjoy two men who were in the middle of the battle, and who hold wrestling history near and dear to their hearts discuss what went down, then you owe it to yourself to pick up this informative trip down memory lane.
For further reading on JCP’s downfall: JCP: The Good Old Days and Four Horsemen History
