Verne could have played his Baba pipeline better and offered his fans some interesting new talent after Wrestlerock.
If Verne hangs on to his $ and talent for 8 months longer than he did, he's in play for the UWF talent. So Doc, Steiner, etc guys with NCAA cred Verne would love can be added to the mix. (To be fair, young Rick and eventually young Scott Steiner both made AWA TV and Verne used both as job guys.)
I don't think Dibiase would have been in play, Baba pipeline or not as JCP was offering him 250K or something like that as his guarantee before he went with Vince's offer.
Verne does switch alliances to NJPW at some point (late 87/early 88?) which opens up light heavyweight showcase matches for ESPN. Owen is not yet in the WWF, the Guerreros are about to enter AWA, Muta is already slumming it in America in various territories in 87. The Rockers are still in and out of the AWA at times, Tanaka and Diamond are soon to arrive. The Bulldogs and Brian Blair could be late 88 additions.
Of course any free agents/fantasy booking is null and void as the AWA is offering hot dogs and hand shakes for payoffs so there's no incentive to come other than the ESPN TV. Verne is a prick boss and the only house shows are paid shows in front of 1000 people on a good weekend.
Brody tried booking hoss heavy in WCCW in late 86/into 87 (Abby, Jos LeDuc, Mulligan, Nord etc) and that was part of the death period of WCCW. Different fan demo and all that from the AWA