Andrew Lutzke
Part one was reviewed here
This was filmed in 2006 and is presented by Ring of Honor.
Bill Watts puts over ROH and the true talent it books. ROH fans are also wrestling historians and appreciate the past generations.
Watts plugs his book and tells of how his family and friends were impressed by how much he was willing to open up in it.
Bill had a rule that locker room fights were never to be broken up.
The “Cowboy” is amused by how so many wrestlers talk about beating him down or scaring him off in real fights.
Watts calls out anyone who still has issues with him and says even at 67 he’ll fight.
Ernie Ladd is suffering from cancer and Watts wants ROH to do a shoot with him. Thunderbolt Patterson’s story should be told as well. Watts wishes Corny and Jim Ross could do a joint shoot with him.
Louisiana had a strong commissioner over their sporting events. Watts feels it’s just a way to take 5% of profits from a promotion.
The commish made Watts run very small towns as part of the political maneuvering.
Watts had commissions give away tickets to wrestling events without his permission.
Mid South would get hosed financially during Superdome shows via stuff like being charged $15,000 (Triple the usual rate) for post show clean up due to Mid-South running a show near a holiday.
Watts blames 1930’s politician Huey Long for Louisiana being politically corrupt. He then rants against people sucking off the government teat.
Buck Robley – Thinks Watts is a pile of crap and Watts stole his ideas. Watts says he paid Robley 7 grand for working and booking during Robley’s last week under his employ and he bets Robley would like that kind of income again.
Robley was against using the Freebirds, who were then only Hayes and Gordy and Watts veto’d Robley’s attempt to get rid of them. Bill then added Buddy Roberts to the gang.
Buck was also not a proponent of the Junkyard Dog being pushed.
The famous “blinding” angle with JYD and the ‘Birds was altered by Watts after Buck booked the Freebirds to intentionally blind JYD – Watts made it at least look accidental so the Birds could have deniability and save the Mid South promotion from looking impotent by not suspending them for the heinous act.
Robley left and the promotion grew as Ernie Ladd took over as booker.
Watts laments the loss of the territories and how the guys have nowhere to learn their craft now.
Bill Dundee brought great finishes and helped a smaller body type get over and expand the female audience. The Rock and Roll Express, Magnum TA, Midnight Express and others came in and became stars during his run.
Dundee was removed from being an in ring talent as he put himself over far too often.
Watts also “stole” the idea of music videos to promote talent from Memphis.
Ken Mantel came in to book while the south was suffering from a crippling oil crisis.
Watts’ expansion plans for his territory sunk along with the economy. Bill was losing $50K a week.
Oklahoma City and Tulsa would each draw $100,000 in tickets every 2 weeks. They dropped upwards of 75% after the oil crisis.
Watts claims even the whores in New Orleans disappeared due to the financial crunch.
Jim Crockett partnered with Watts for a Superdome show with Muhammad Ali involved and the crisis made it bomb badly.
For fun let’s take a look at the Superdome card that bombed:
Superdome Extravaganza 6/85
June 1, 1985 in New Orleans, LA
The Superdome drawing 11,000 ($98,000)
- Dutch Mantel pinned Mark Ragin.
- The Nightmare (Randy Colley) pinned Frankie Lane.
- Wendell Cooley beat Eddie Gilbert via DQ.
- The Barbarian pinned Pat Rose.
- Bill Dundee pinned Tom Pritchard.
- Michael Hayes & Buddy Roberts beat Brad Armstrong & Brickhouse Brown.
- Mid-South TV Champ The Snowman (seconded by Muhammad Ali) pinned Jake Roberts.
- NWA World Champ Ric Flair pinned Terry Taylor (40:00).
- Sgt. Slaughter & Terry Daniels beat The Dirty White Boys in a “boot camp” match.
- Mid-South Tag Champs Steve Williams & Ted DiBiase beat The Rock-n-Roll Express.
- Jim Duggan DDQ Kimala.
(results courtesy of prowrestlinghistory.com)
Watts was prepping to sue Vince McMahon for monopolizing the business and the case would be held in Louisiana – Watts considered threatening Vince with this and then offering him a buy out to take over the UWF (Mid-South) instead. Watts knew a lawsuit would take 2-3 years and that by the suit’s end the UWF would be out of business before Vince’s money could have came in.
Jim Ross called Jim Crockett and convinced him he needed the UWF TV clearance and talent to compete with Vince and they bought the UWF instead. Watts gave Ross a nice bonus for saving his personal fiscal health.
Grizzly Smith (Bill’s dear friend and head road agent) was fired by Watts and he ended up going to a competing promotion to try and get back at Watts.
Watts watched Grizzly book poorly and paid him on the sly to keep him on the competition’s team so their business would continue to stink.
Jackson, Mississippi’s local promoter was a racist so JYD would cut promos for the town talking about being over at the promoter’s house eating fried chicken and watermelon.
Baton Rogue, LA still segregated the audience when Watts first started booking the area.
Watts had to break the in ring segregation as well.
Bill would cheat on his wife with his kids around. Watts regrets many bad influences he exposed his kids to at times.
Cornette and Watts go over the mess that Grizzly Smith’s kids turned into: Sam Houston is in jail for countless DUIs his dad tried to help cover up, Rockin’ Robin is a drug mess and Jake Roberts…well that speaks for itself.
Bill gives Jake a break for his behavior since Jake was always messed up and Bill never saw the “real” Jake. Roberts caused locker room issues as well by messing with guy’s minds. Jake did give Watts notice before jumping to the WWF and put over the next “star” for Watts.
Buddy Landell was also a drug mess and paid tons of fines to Watts for indiscretions. Landell didn’t bitch about the fines.
Watts wanted guys at the arena an hour early and they had to watch the matches and not leave early.
They discuss the famous Dick Murdoch/Ted Dibiase angle from 1985:
Watts booked a lot of non-squash matches because he felt that putting on mismatches made little logical sense if this was “real”.
Dibiase was missing “something” to be a centerpiece star for a promotion, but he had so many attributes he could be put in any role successfully.
WCW had a series of terrible figureheads and a bloated payroll when Watts took over. WCW had lost 8 million dollars the year before Watts stepped in.
Bob Dhue was in charge of the Omni and he helped get Watts the WCW gig as Vice-President of WCW.
Human relations people in offices need conflict to justify their spot.
Dusty Rhodes wasn’t a fiscally responsible booker and he sunk Crockett’s promotion. Then WCW hired Rhodes to be booker again anyway…
Watts was ordered to fire Dusty but he and Watts worked out an agreement.
Ole Anderson also worked as a WCW booker – they had a long history as business partners and creative partners.
Ole and Jack and Jerry Brisco made a “blood oath” agreement as business partners for Georgia. They forced Jim Barnett out as co-owner after they found out he was stealing and then Barnett jumped to the WWF. The Briscos would sell out to Vince not long after.
Anderson was then given a role by Watts where Ole would critique each guy after their matches on TV in order to improve their performances.
Watts watched as his power was usurped and others approved an $80,000 expense for making the “White Castle of Fear” commercial with super villain hide outs and midgets to sell a Vader vs. Sting strap match.
Ole married the woman who approved this and Watts suspects Anderson was backstabbing him.
Bischoff fired Jim Ross quickly after taking power after Watts’ removal.
Bill wanted to go back to putting live TV specials opposite of WWF PPVs. The cable execs denied his request. Watts found Nitro being approved to face off with RAW to be the same idea.
Watts next went to the WWF. Vince wanted an ass kisser. The first thing he did was make Watts go into a boardroom and Vince’s staff told Watts what they disliked about him. Bruce “Brother Love” Pritchard is called on the carpet in particular for being a weasel for Vince.
Bill was part of the creative team and claims the plan was always for him to only be there for 3 months.
Watts got an apartment and a car provided for him during his WWF run.
Vince rebooked and re-edited a bunch of TV angles and matches in a desperate bid to stop Nitro’s momentum. Then Vince bitched out the creative team until Watts called him out on the fact that Vince had the final say in everything,
McMahon had the booking team come to his house and Vince would waste hours taking calls and other things while Watts and the team twiddled their thumbs. Watts told Vince he needed to focus on business at TV and not putz around with his wrestler’s whining. This led to Watts being put in charge of TV and Vince heaping praise on Bill’s performance and out put.
Vince went back to micromanaging quickly and Watts quit before he became Vince’s stooge like everyone else was.
We jump back to the WWWF days of the 60’s when Watts was a young man looking to shine:
Arnold Skaaland would play cards instead of watch matches while “running” house shows.
Watts claims he and “Clyde Stevens” had to work an hour-long match on Philadelphia TV because the rest of the guys got distracted playing poker and failed to show up.
Bill feels Vince should have made deals with territories to rotate talent in the 80’s instead of killing everyone off.
Watts contemplated doing weight class divisions for wrestling at one point but never followed up on it.
Corny and Watts go on about how the little things are missing from today’s business.
Jim asks about all the wrestling deaths and Watts feels personal responsibility has to be a part of it and promotions need to drug test.
Road Warrior Hawk told Watts the drugs made him want to kill.
Lots of promoters ignored issues as long as the guys could waddle to the ring.
King Kong Mosca was a bit careless and Watts wouldn’t let him use chairs and such on him because he didn’t want to be injured.
Vader and Scott Steiner hurt jobbers by roughing them up carelessly during squashes.
Bill blames alcohol for some of his fighting habits and his cheating.
Watts preaches for several minutes….and then some…
Final Thoughts:
I love me some Bill Watts! This was an intriguing shoot, as Watts has the unique perspective from being a headline wrestler, a booker, an owner and a big wig in both WCW and the WWF. For being nearly 70 he doesn’t exhibit a lapse in memory or in verbal ability. Watts is his own biggest fan, even if he does gently mock himself at times – so be warned that you will hear a lot about how Bill was awesome at everything (except fatherhood and husbandry) and he made up for the numb nuts that he was surrounded by. The first two hours of the shoot are the real meat and potatoes and the last half hour is dragged down a bit by Corny and Watts being grumpy old men about the way things are done today and then we close with a 10 minute bible thumping session that ended things with a whimper. Still a lot of gold to mine here.
