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WCCW TV

Irwin was a big pusher of the "he ate steak until he burst" narrative when it came up, which is by far the worst one (I'm lumping it in with the bad sushi). At least the Road Warrior kick sounded plausible on its face.

I haven't read it in many years but I remember Meltz debunking it as steakhouse they claimed to go to didn't exist. I gotta find that again.

My dissatisfaction with The Iron Claw has me going down rabbitholes again.
 
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WCCW was still somewhat riding the crest from their 1983 hot period at this point. With the Chris Adams/Kevin Von Erich feud now hitting it’s ninth month, this feels like the show where a big blow off should occur so the Von Erichs can move on to other issues.

Ric Flair had been coming in fairly frequently to defend the NWA title at this point yet, so a main event of Kevin Von Erich vs. Flair does not strike me as one that needed a stadium venue. The allure of a World title change no doubt had to play a part in drawing in the fans though after Kerry’s momentous night at this event last year.

The real appeal of the evening may have been the novelty of the Von Erichs teaming up as a trio with all 3 Freebirds for what I believe is the first time ever. They were set to face Ric Flair, Chris Adams, Gino Hernandez, Dr. Death, Kamala and the One Man Gang in a best of five falls dream match. The faces were comprised of six men who weren’t quite sure they could trust the others after their long and violent feud. The heels also had combustible factors since Gary Hart and Chris Adams split up several months earlier, leaving some heavy tension in the air.

Add to that mix several grudge matches and suddenly the card drawing 26,000 to Texas Stadium doesn’t seem too surprising.
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Leading up to that Oct 86 Cotton Bowl:
May 86
Ken Mantel had quit WCCW and took a big swath of talent to him in the new UWF. (Freebirds, OMG, Kamala, John Tatum, Sunshine. Iceman, Chris Adams, Missy Hyatt, Akbar and Missing Link)
With Kerry about to be hurt, David dead, Kevin had a bum shoulder and Mike fried, the biz was toast.
Brody was booking so we got slugs like Blackjack Mulligan and Jeep Swenson in to headline. Swenson quit when Brody stiffed the fuck out of him in a match.

Hayes lost a stipulation match on WCCW TV and then went on UWF TV, reneged on whatever the stip was and bad mouthed the Von Eriches.
Fritz then booked the Freebirds to a show in July, knowing they would no show, so he could sue them for breach of contract over jumping to the UWF.
The Blade Runners were supposed to come in, with fellow roided stiff Jeff Gaylord as the new top heels. Sting stayed with Watts instead. I'm not sure Gaylord ever appeared. Warrior ended up as a face despite being named Dingo as some sort of street thug lingo from Gary Hart (Dingo and Socko was the plan)
Fritz, ignoring reality, tried to run New Orleans to stick it to Watts.
The last Texas Stadium show, with all the UWF bound talent, still drew 17,000-20,000 depending on the source. The commission of Texas says 20K. The promotion kayfabed 24K+

Mulligan beat up a ref legit in July and wasn't fired. A week later he refused to work with Kevin VE because Mulligan had a sternum injury and he didn't want the stiff Kevin to hurt him more. This led to a locker room fight and Kevin got his ass kicked. Fritz was mad BJ wasn't fired over the ref incident after Kevin got whooped.

Chris Adams was back in WCCW and won their "World" title. He was about to go to jail over the head butting a pilot thing, so he was stripped on TV and the World title was handed to Black Bart of all people. Then announcer Marc Lowarance declared he had never heard of Black Bart before.

This was Adams last show (Look at this fuckin' line up!)
9/12/86 Dallas
Bart Batten beat Killer Brooks
Mighty Zulu drew Mark Youngblood
Mike Von Erich beat Matt Borne
Chris Adams beat Buzz Sawyer by DQ
The Grappler beat Brad Batten
Chris Adams & Steve Simpson beat Dingo Warrior & Jos LeDuc

They were about to bring in Bam Bam Bigelow, but made him a Russian to avoid using the "Bam Bam" nick name.

That Cotton Bowl show with Steamboat still drew $70K. Fritz was pissed though and planned to come out of retirement at the Thanksgiving show to face Abby to try and pop business.
They also wanted to haul Kerry out to be in the corner of his brothers. The WON claimed Kerry was off the juice and down to 190 pounds as he recovered. (His amputation was actually a few months after the accident, so he would have been pretty fresh off major surgery)
 
The WCCW shit is bonkers. Hayes not only comes back, but books in 1988. Ken Mantel not only comes back, but buys into WCCW and merges Wild West with them in 88ish.

It is pretty crazy how the whole business was hot in 84-85 and by 86 almost everybody was in deep shit.
Don Owens was out of talent. Buddy Rose was with Verne. Billy Jack was mad at him again and was booking opposition before and after his WWF run.
Florida and Central States became JCP's adopted kids.
AWA benched the senior circuit in Aug of 85 and then lost the last of their drawing talent in early 86. Verne not only had to deal with JCP and WWF running Minnesota, but he had his old employees running outlaw shows and Windy City Wrestling siphoning fans.
Memphis had a loaded roster in 84/85 and petered out fast. I'd say the Lawler hair angle and feud with Idol/Rich in 87 was the last hurrah. They did a good house for Lawler's AWA title win in May 88.
Afa was doing little shows on the East Coast with Rocky Johnson, Jules Strongbow, etc. NWF and the Savoldis had their indies.
The oil market crashing helped kill WCCW and the UWF.
And so on.... (Tomko, Stampede, etc)

WWF themselves showed signs of weakness that were/are generally ignored in the big picture. Stuff like MSG going from monthly sell outs for Bruno, Backlund era and early Hogan to struggling attendance wise in 1988.
 
From a state of the art TV production to Wrestlecrap gimmicks with a red screen.


The Thing would stick around until Gary Hart bought him. (IIRC) Then "The Real Thing" showed up and Hart's was revealed to be an imposter (Rip Morgan IIRC) then The original Thing quit or whatever and I think they dropped the whole "thing" thing.
 
That Terry Garvin is one of the most annoying color guys in history so that team makes me super nervous
 
I'm almost positive he went more Rip Taylor "one of the good ones" gay but then the last time I watched that era I was pretty unsober.
 

Quality BS from Fritz. Standard stuff like "I drew 83,000 people to a stadium in Japan" but then he gets to WCCW touring Israel and talks about how 20,000 people blocked the highways just to get a glimpse of Kevin Von Erich. WCCW TV is the only thing that causes a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon they say tongue in cheekly.
 
November 17 — Mike Von Erich is in a car accident at 3:50am and is thrown through the sunroof before his car rolls multiple times. Mike escapes with few injuries, although he spends a day in the hospital. Suspiciously, police do not perform a sobriety test. The public explanation is that Mike was watching wrestling videotapes at Kevin Von Erich’s house and lost track of time.
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Months before Kerry's wreck and nothing was learned.
 
Kevin has a fascinating twist on kayfabe as he says "We had to do steroids because our opponents were on it so we had to keep up"

He FINALLY almost admits Kerry as an Olympic disc thrower was just hype. He hems and ha's until saying "He went to one meet but didn't follow through the rest of the trials"

Theo asks about the family's addiction issues: "Kerry wasn't addicted to anything, he just liked doing everything!" Cocaine, mushrooms, pills, etc
 
Kevin reveals his parents were going to divorce when the boys were teens, but since all the boys wanted to go with dad, Mama Doris found a way to work out their issues. I can't recall hearing that before in Fritz book or elsewhere.

Kevin shares a story about catching his parents fucking. "They sounded so angry we had to break in and see what was happening"

He claims they never worked impaired. Then tossed out some "oh gollies" and talked about wrestling while on ghb.

Kevin says he never worked heel, then goes on to talk about being a heel in Amarillo vs the Funks a bit later.

Kerry was a great RB. He touched the ball 5 times in one game and scored 5 TDs. The coach didn't want him to play offense because they needed him on Defense.

Kevin says the family was not into religion growing up, but a family friend took him to a religious thing and men surrounded him and asked Kevin if he believed in God. After saying yes, Kevin went outside and saw an angel race across the field.

Another story from 1982ish was Kevin being told on the way to ring that Mike had been in a wreck and was going to die, so no need to rush to the hospital as he wasn't going to live long enough to see him. Kevin squashed King Kong Bundy and raced to the hospital. Mike was sitting there fine.
Kevin took his dog to the pond to decompress from this and he saw demons rise up and come at him.
 

Recent and mostly well made doc on the family tragedy. Kerry's kids are interviewed for a new perspective. Kevin has some fibs, but what can you do? (When Mike died Kevin says Fritz shoved him and Kerry back in the ring, Kerry was maimed at this point) The doc also implies Fritz was booking WCCW into 1991, when he had sold it off in 87-88 to Bum Bright and eventually Jarrett. (The amazing deal where Kevin and Kerry wanted it back if Jarrett made money, but didn't want the debt if Jarrett faltered)
I'm pretty sure Kevin revealed on Dark Side of the Ring that he found Chris and added the horrifying detail about his finger slipping into the bullet hole in Chris' head. Here he says he found Chris an hour earlier after Chris implied to Kevin's kid that he was going to kill himself, So Kevin finds Chris in the dark woods, and Chris tells him to leave me alone and go read my note.....so Kevin does and that's when Chris shoots himself. Kevin races back to where Chris was and finds him convulsing, which Kevin helpfully mimics here to my horror.
 
Lance Peterson on the Stick to Wrestling pod pointed out a frequently incorrect stated "fact" that Mike VE was hurt in Israel before his Toxic Shock incident is incorrect. He made it home and worked a TV taping before showing up a week later with his arm in a sleave.
The match is on the WWE network and you can tell he isn't hurt in it.

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Apparently at the Cotton Bowl 85 show Kelly Kiniski had Gene with him at ringside. After his extended squash win (yes on a stadium show...) Gene went in the ring and cut a promo on Fritz. It never aired. Lance isn't sure if Gene went into business for himself or what. Somebody should have told Gene that the AWA was the place booking Dinosaurs yet ATM.

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The NWA/WCCW split happened around this point so the main event is the 1000th meeting of Chris Adams/Gino vs Kerry and Kevin (IIRC literally a year into the feud) and they go again at Xmas IIRC. Rick Rude is coming in to finally give the heels some new blood.

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So for perspective, Mike just got the Toxic Shock, Gino dies in Feb IIRC and Kerry gets hurt in May. So in 8 months you lose your Austin, Kane and Shamrock if you try and conflate it to a WWF 1997 comparison, given my recent fantasy booking twist on that era.

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Brian Adidas was apparently almost going to jump to Memphis to be in the "New" Fabulous Ones.

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With Flair our of the picture, the top title is held by.... Iceman Parsons. He was hot in 1983 and stuck around the Dallas scene for a decade, but it speaks volumes that a wrestling war was about to explode and he spent the whole thing in WCCW/Mid South/UWF.... Maybe Wild West for a hot minute? (Yes I know he was in JCP previous and allegedly was promised a NWA World tag title run (MACW tag title?) run that never materialized) .
Rick Rude would win the title almost as soon as he came in. He was formally named a "World" champ by WCCW in March.

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On top of the workers dying, Lance says a decades long old man super fan died at one of the big shows in 1986. He was hauled off right in front of everyone.

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The week Mike VE killed himself saw Bookerman Brody do his first 1-2-3 job in the US in many years. He (Well, Red River Jack) did the fall for BLACK BART. It was then over turned due to heel shenanigans.
`1
Meanwhile the Dingo Warrior was fired by Brody for refusing to put over Nord as Nord needed to be rushed into the main event scene as he was to face Kevin VE for the World title at the Stadium show (where Nord would then refuse to lose to Kevin anyway)
 
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