Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Sean Oliver and the Kayfabe Commentary Crew
The Man
J.J. Dillon was born James Morrison on June 26, 1942. Throughout his life, Dillon experienced just about every aspect that one could while involved in the world of pro wrestling. He started as a super fan, leading the Johnny Valentine Fan Club as its president. Dillon started to love the sport in his teen years and found his way to the local armory whenever wrestling came in and helped out any way he could. This included picking up the wrestlers’ ring jackets and selling programs. J.J. broke into the business itself in 1960, working as a referee for the WWWF – despite having just graduated high school. He was a sub when other referees had traveling issues. On July 11th, 1962 Dillon wrestled his 1st pro match under the name Jim Valence- his name was his way of honoring Valentine. His first TV match was a loss to the legendary Killer Kowalski. J.J. ended up wrestling sporadically for several years – keeping a full time jobs like selling insurance and teaching while still wrestling on weekends when possible. Finally at age 29 he got a break in the Carolinas and took up wrestling full time. Up to this point Dillon was largely a TV jobber.
Dillon received a minor push but was a respected talent and when a spot came open in the Nova Scotia territory, Jim Crockett Sr. sent James up there – and he ended up as the top heel of the small promotion. He impressed enough in this role to get a run in the Amarillo territory run by the Funk brothers.
His career trajectory changed yet again when J.J. received a call from the Mongolian Stomper, who was heading to Dallas and wanted Dillon to come in with him as his manager. Within a year Stomper and Dillon would be in Georgia where they ended up splitting up. By the late 70’s J.J.’s journey as a worker took him to international sites like Australia, Kuwait, Japan and Europe. Dillon returned to America and became booker for the Kansas City territory for eight months. He then found his way to Florida, Memphis and Georgia among other places in the early 80’s.
Dillon got to realize one of his dreams and made a special appearance in Madison Square Garden on April 24th, 1984. The very same building that J.J.’s heroes competed in over 25 years earlier when he was still merely a fan. Dillon did the honors for Tito Santana that night, but the loss didn’t halt J.J.’s progress as within weeks he had moved to Nova Scotia to be the territories’ booker and also snagged the promotion’s title. This run would last only a short while though as destiny came calling and J.J. was brought into one of America’s top promotions – Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling.
By this point Dusty Rhodes had become the booker and an attempt to expand nationally was in its formative stages in order to compete with the suddenly exploding WWF. Dillon was named an assistant to Dusty in the office, as well as an on-screen talent as a manager. J.J. found talents such as Ron Bass & Black Bart (collectively known as the Long Riders) to guide and in late 1985 scooped up the contract of young stud talent Tully Blanchard. Through the course of the next few months a loose alliance started to form between JCP’s heel title holders Ric Flair, Ole and Arn Anderson and Tully and that would bond into a full-fledged stable known as the Four Horsemen. I’ll cover the Horsemen’s run in depth in a future article. I will say however that my favorite memory of Dillon during this time is when Flair had won a night with Jimmy Garvin’s valet. J.J. helped Flair set up the hotel room and then proposed to Flair that Ric should let J.J. sneak in the closet and watch the sexcapades unfold. Fantastically sleazy character building!
Dillon managed the foursome through member changes, title losses, injuries and wild feuds with Dusty Rhodes, The Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff, Sting, Ron Garvin, Barry Windham, Lex Luger and many others over the next few years. The Horsemen collapsed in September of 1988 as Arn and Tully quit JCP and headed to the WWF. Dillon stuck around for a few months- guiding Barry Windham and Ric Flair to successful title defenses at Starcade ’88 before parting ways with WCW soon after.
Dillon wound up following Arn and Tully in February of 1989 to the WWF but would be used only in a behind the scenes role. The Apter Magazines tried to make their own storyline out of this in the summer of ’89 as they ran an article surmising that J.J. Dillon was rebuilding the Four Horsemen in the WWF, as Barry Windham had just signed there and Arn and Tully were riding high as tag team champions. JJ stayed on with the WWF until 1996 when he jumped to WCW to work both on and off screen.
Dillon played the opposite of his usual role and became the babyface authority that tried to control the nWo while the group was at its peak. He stayed working for WCW until Vince McMahon bought them out in 2001. Dillon would next be seen making two appearances with TNA as their commissioner, but that ultimately went nowhere. J.J. retired from wrestling in 2003 and wrote a book “Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls” chronicling his career. He went into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012 as part of the Horsemen. As a final note, to show what kind of respect the fans had for J.J. even as a villain, he was elected Pro Wrestling Illustrated “Manager of the Year” three times – two of those were won before he ever found the national stage in JCP.
The Shoot: “Writing Wrestling Television”
Dillon had experience working in small TV markets in the studio wrestling all the way to Vince’s PPV extravaganzas so he gets to guide us in the art of writing wrestling TV.
We hear of Vince’s anal retentiveness of eliminating empty seats from camera view, thus avoiding appearing less popular than desired.
Vince trained his fans to pop for theme music and edited in any reactions that were not achieved naturally.
J.J. talks about Vince’s love of quick editing when a big move is hit and how it annoys a lot of fans, including J.J. himself.
Vince would lay out a yearlong master plan from Wrestlemania to Wrestlemania. (Boy do we miss that now!)
Vince would make J.J. and Pat Patterson brainstorm for 2-3 days before settling on even one idea. Working weekends was a must as Vince spent all week in meetings and other office duties.
Dillon is going to reverse book this supercard PPV:
- Hogan/Dusty vs Arn/Flair
- Bret Hart vs Sting
- Steiner Bros vs Money Inc
- Nikita Koloff vs Undertaker
- Shawn Michaels vs Rick Rude
- Cactus Jack vs Sid Vicious
- Owen Hart vs Brian Pillman
Dillon does not believe that Wrestling Challenge ever aired in a market without Superstars also being in the TV market.
Vince liked to slowly trickle out announcing his PPV matches – starting with the big draws and building interest slowly for his mid card bouts
We go over the different ways to build feuds. (One man wrestles – the other commentates, rotating promos on the A and B shows, wrestling stable mates of your opponent, stare downs, stand offs etc)
They cover ways to put heat on heels. (In this case Dusty is at a children’s hospital and the Horsemen beatdown Hogan)
Vince made sure to try and never have 2 tag matches back to back and never have the same manager come out two matches in a row.
Vince’s personality makes it hard to tell him the truth. Patterson and Brisco were two of the few who weren’t “yes men” for Vince.
Dusty Rhodes and Kevin Sullivan both booked “big picture” wise. Dillon was important as the detail guy to make everything cohesive.
You had to often have long term plans ready so that you can ease bruised egos and tell those who are set to job about brighter days ahead in their careers.
Final Thoughts: As you can tell from the brevity of the shoot review portion of this article, this DVD didn’t have too much meat on its proverbial bone. Dillon is very sharp for a man near 70, but this particular subject matter was rather dry and sometimes obvious to a long term fan. It was nice of Kayfabe Commentaries to think outside the box for shoot interview ideas, but this one was a disappointment.
Image courtesy John Jewell
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