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WWF: Hulkamania era (1984-`1992)

BruiserBrody

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[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1786901920965120462
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I wonder how long Race would have rode the road in the mid card had he not gotten hurt? There's an alternative history where he sticks it out into 1990, maybe doing the blow off of his career at Mania 6 like Andre. Then sticks around the back for a bit before taking a managerial role when Heenan bows out. (89 Race/Dusty feud?)

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Akeem is one of the odder guys to fall out of favor with Vince. Good size, charisma, willing to job.... Wanting to get rid of the OMG gimmick has to be some weird Vince-ism about creating his own thing.
 
BruiserBrody

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[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
Valeyard said:
I wish Race had gotten the Honky Tonk Man push.
Click to expand...
King of Rock and Roll instead of the King of Wrestling?
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April 84 – Vince McMahon visits Stu Swartz, general manager of KMSP-9 in Minneapolis, to offer a six-figure upfront cash payment to stop airing AWA television and air WWF programming in its place. Swartz declines the offer. [DEATH OF THE TERRITORIES, pp. 125]
April – Hisashi Shinma promotes the UWF debut with some deceptive advertising, creating a poster that includes Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Antonio Inoki, Bob Backlund, and Satoru Sayama with a caption that states, “These wrestlers have possibilities of making an appearance on a UWF mat.” [WON MAY 1984]

April 11 – Former NJPW President Hisashi Shinma’s plans to air a new show on Fuji-TV with Satoru Sayama as the top star fall apart as Shinma and Sayama have a personal falling out over Shinma’s allegations that Sayama’s business manager has ties to the criminal underworld. The first episode was intended to be matches from the March 25 WWF card at Madison Square Garden, where Sayama would return to the United States and be rebranded as The Tiger, thus opening the door for Vince McMahon to start promoting him as his top star in Japan. Shinma travels to New York, Mexico, and Calgary to attempt to book foreign talents on his show; however, NJPW officers Antonio Inoki and Seiji Sakaguchi have already met with those promoters, which impedes his progress. [WON MAY 1984] This leaves Shinma to form the Universal Wrestling Federation, which runs its first card without television. Surprisingly, All Japan Pro Wrestling extends an olive branch by offering Mach Hayato for the group’s first week of shows. Stories surfaced initially that Dory and Terry Funk booked the week’s American wrestlers, but those were later refuted, as John Blackburn, son of AWA President Stanley Blackburn, handled the booking of American wrestlers. [WON JUNE 1984] New Japan Pro Wrestling also sends young Nobuhiko Takada to the UWF for its first week and allows Yoshiaki Fujiwara to main event the April 17 card.

April 21 – Having lost local television in San Jose, Vince McMahon travels to San Francisco to meet with James Gabbert, the owner of KTVO-20, which airs AWA All Star Wrestling, and offers Gabbert $2,000 per week to replace AWA programming with the WWF’s Superstars of Wrestling. The arrangement with the AWA was that KTVO could air the show for free and keep all advertising revenue; Vince proposes $2,000 per week and they can still keep 100 percent of advertising revenue. Gabbert agrees to the proposal, and since the AWA does not have a TV contract that KTVO has to honor, the WWF immediately takes over the time slot. [DEATH OF THE TERRITORIES, pp. 123]

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A Giant Cover Up? Remembering the Very Brief WWF Career of ‘Trapper John’

Brian Damage If you have ever followed the career of Vincent Kennedy McMahon, you would know that Vince always had a love affair with giants. The bigger the wrestler, the better. Over the years, th…
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Conspiracy theory is that he stunk and wasn’t worth being even by ‘86 WWF standards.

If he was remotely passable, they would have tried to make him Andre’s successor.
 
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If he wasn’t one of the worst workers of all time then surely some territory would have found use for a legit 7’5’’ guy. Entire conceit of that article is dumb.
 
Valeyard

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I wonder why Vince never tried to bring Giant Haystacks in. Worst worker of all time but definitely fit the 1980-86 vibe.
 
BruiserBrody

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[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
So in late 87 the Dream Team is split, so we can assume the WWF wanted a new heel team to fill out the house shows. The Rougeaus have been floundering since the Fall of 85. But the Killer Bees are offered the heel role and for whatever reason they don't want to do the turn. They had been mostly doing nothing of note since their Summer of 85 inception. To balance things out the Harts are going to turn after Mania 4.
I have to wonder if the merch money was enough for the Bees to justify wanting to stay faces, even without a push?
The Bolsheviks were just formed in late 87 but never really got a push past getting a round with Strike Force.
The Bulldogs were pretty much a side dish to the main offering of Matilda by 88. Their promos and angles are now all Matilda centric.

Seems like the Bees could have switched the Masked Confusion gimmick into a heel thing, and the cheesy promos telling fans to "BUZZ OFF!" write themselves.
I'm going to blame Blair since he wound up as the one who refused to do TV jobs in Oct and got himself fired. Brunzell had proposed a heel turn to Verne in 84.
Blair pretty much fell off the earth after Vince fired him, other than the UWF run.
 
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The Bees would have been awful heels. It's impossible to boo those guys. It's like booing your friend's dad and his buddy. I don't think they even go up the card, they just start having bangers with the face teams no one appreciates until they're long gone. That said, Brunzell should've turned on Greg in 1982 or something. Could've been their Freebirds/Von Erichs.
 
BruiserBrody

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[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
May 89 WON notes from the Wrestling History Grenade pod:

- Before Tama and Steamboat quit there was apparently a plan to book Team Hawaii (Steamboat/Muraco) in a feud with the Islanders.
- Tama quit either due to pay off issues or to protest Sika being released after Mania.
- WWF was supposedly shopping the idea of a TV special that would feature Macho Man and Liz getting married. (Meltz suggests this would be up against the Bash 88 PPV.)
 
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In Transition: Bridging the Gap to Hulkamania

Brian Damage The launch of Hulk Hogan as WWF champion and the subsequent birth of ‘Hulkamania,’ was really the starting point for the World Wrestling Federation’s growth from loca…
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Muraco as WWF World Champion would have ruled.

Brod, is Bill Eadie being tight with Vince Sr the source of his beef with VKM? Granted, if Vinnie hated Ax that much in the ‘80s then he wouldn’t have brought him back to be a Machine let alone one half of one of the GOAT tag teams.
 
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[quote author=BRODY link=topic=7317.msg606823#msg6
King Kamala said:
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In Transition: Bridging the Gap to Hulkamania

Brian Damage The launch of Hulk Hogan as WWF champion and the subsequent birth of ‘Hulkamania,’ was really the starting point for the World Wrestling Federation’s growth from loca…
ringthedamnbell.wordpress.com ringthedamnbell.wordpress.com
Muraco as WWF World Champion would have ruled.

Brod, is Bill Eadie being tight with Vince Sr the source of his beef with VKM? Granted, if Vinnie hated Ax that much in the ‘80s then he wouldn’t have brought him back to be a Machine let alone one half of one of the GOAT tag teams.
Click to expand...
If I recall his interview in the Six Pack book correctly, Vince was going to give him an agent gig after SSeries 90 and never came through and after that Eadie and the WWF spent literally the rest of the decade in legal battles that Eadie wound up getting a supposed large pay out from.

IIRC Eadie at one point went over Jr's head to Sr because nobody really knew Jr was actually in charge.

Interesting logic by Sr that doing jobs around the horn for Backlund was okay, but finally beating him only to lose the belt would be harmful. Hogan beat Superstar a bunch of times regardless.

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Eadie also claims to have turned down the AWA title in 85 as Verne pitched him "You'll make 10K a week in All Japan, and I'll take 20 percent as your promoter" Eadie told Gagne "Inoki already pays me 10K a week and I don't have to give any of it to anyone"
 
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