Andrew Lutzke
The Man (Part 2): With Dusty accepting the big money JCP offered to book for Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, Florida lost its booker and its top draw. On top of that, other top names that frequented Florida – Mike Rotunda, Barry Windham, Ron Bass – went to JCP with Dusty (although Windham and Rotunda would jump to the WWF soon after). Blackjack Mulligan was also away from Florida for much of the year, doing runs in the AWA , WWF and elsewhere. This left Florida with a fairly barebones roster, supplemented only by occasional visits by Dusty Rhodes.
Florida would attempt to rebuild with Sullivan and his rotating Army of Darkness, Scott McGhee, Pez Whatley and a few other name guys who would rotate in before JCP or WWF could buy them up. By January of 1985, promoter Eddie Graham, once the most powerful man in the business as President of the NWA, was distraught over his promotion’s collapse, along other business deals going sour and losing a battle with alcoholism. The ruggedly handsome 55 year old put a gun to his head, flinched due to either fear or instinct and blew part of his face off. In shock and now almost forced to finish the deed, Graham raised the gun again and ended his life.
This being wrestling, Eddie’s death was used for an angle as his son Mike vowed to win the World title in his father’s honor – before the Fabulous Freebirds interrupted and ended up brawling with Mike.
Sullivan meanwhile was still crazy, outright slapping old women on TV:
Sullivan would have two stints booking Florida over the next two years. In the same period, he also was traveling to ICW with Roop, Lewin and the Fallen Angel and were among the top heels. Meanwhile back in Florida, The Army of Darkness took in Abdullah the Butcher, Kareem Mohammad & Elijah Akeem. Incredibly, by the summer of 1987 Sullivan was a babyface in Florida and soon after Dusty called Sullivan up to the big leagues in JCP and they formed a team! Sullivan cut promos on TV during this time basically telling Rhodes that he planned on turning heel – warning him about foxes in the hen house and ending promos with Undertaker-esque eye rolls.
Sullivan would turn heel and give up the Satanic stuff to become “The Game Master” – leader of the Varsity Club that included Rick Steiner and Mike Rotunda. Sullivan’s main focus was on Jimmy Garvin’s valet Precious and that meant having to get Jimmy Garvin out of the way:
Sullivan and Garvin would feud for months, culminating in a triple cage “Tower of Doom” match in which Precious would await on the bottom and have possession of the key to escape. Garvin’s team of himself, Ron Garvin, Steve Williams and The Road Warriors would vanquish Sullivan, Al Perez, Ivan Koloff, The Russian Assassin, and Rotunda to end the feud.
Sullivan then focused on tag team action, capturing the US tag team titles with his newest “Varsity Club” member Steve Williams at Starrcade 88, defeating the Fantastics. The tandem would be champions for two months until losing the titles to former Varsity Club member Rick Steiner and Eddie Gilbert. Sullivan and the Club would torment Steiner until summer when Scott Steiner joined his brother to take down Sullivan’s crew.
Rotunda would turn babyface and end up with the unlikely duo of Abdullah the Butcher and Norman the Lunatic as partners in a feud with “Sullivan’s Slaughterhouse” consisting of Sullivan, Cactus Jack and Buzz Sawyer. Around this same period Sullivan joined the WCW booking committee.
The Road Warriors and Norman would defeat Sullivan, Jack and Bam Bam Bigelow at Capital Combat ’90 and afterward Sullivan effectively disappeared from TV as an in ring talent until 1991 when Sullivan became associated with One Man Gang and Black Blood (Billy Jack Haynes) and feuded briefly with El Gigante. Sullivan would make a brief appearance as Merlin the Magician with Kevin Nash’s “Oz” gimmick and disappear shortly thereafter.
Sullivan spent time in FMW in Japan – battling hardcore legends such as Atsushi Onita and The “Original” Sheik. He also brought his special brand of mayhem to Smoky Mountain Wrestling where he led The Mongolian Mauler and The Nightstalker into battle with “Prime Time” Brian Lee – who suffered a vicious mauling with a spike from Sullivan:
Sullivan also worked for the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance – the pre-cursor to ECW – and was ECW founder Tod Gordon’s first choice for booker for his renegade promotion. Sullivan was under contract to WCW and had to turn down the chance. Sullivan would spend early 1993 in ECW regardless, teaming with Taz, winning the tag belts and feuding with Public Enemy. Sullivan would finally return to WCW on screen in the Spring of 1994.
Sullivan came in as a babyface teaming with his dyslexic brother “Evad” whom the Nasty Boys had been picking on. Sullivan eventually took on Cactus Jack as a partner (whom had been teaming with Maxx Payne) and the demented duo beat the Nasty Boys for the titles in late May at Slamboree ’94. Sullivan and Jack lost the belts in July to Paul Roma and Paul Orndorff and split, with Jack doing a poorly received heel turn. Sullivan would defeat Jack at Fall Brawl in a “Loser Leaves WCW” match.
Sullivan himself would turn back to his far more natural heel state after his Evad returned from injury as a full-fledged Hulkamaniac – a move that infuriated Kevin as he revealed he hated Hulk Hogan. This led to Sullivan convincing Hogan’s best friend Ed “Brutus Beefcake” Leslie to turn on Hogan and join him in his quest to end Hulkamania as “The Butcher”. Then John Tenta – who was one of few men to ever seriously injury Hogan, was added as the Avalanche to form the trio known as “The 3 Faces of Fear”. They battled Hogan and his buddies for several months, eventually though Hogan’s continuous success over them led to Avalanche leaving the group and Sullivan and The Butcher ended up in a brief feud.
In the Summer of 1995 Sullivan began hearing voices calling to him. This would turn out to be “The Master” Curtis Iaukea, who would dub Sullivan “The Taskmaster” and over the next several weeks give Sullivan a new monster to use in his quest to end Hulkamania. They were dubbed the “Dungeon of Doom” and ultimately would include Kamala, The Barbarian, Meng, The Yeti, Hugh Morrus, Loch Ness, One Man Gang, Big Bubba Rogers, Maxx Muscle, A Leprechaun and The Giant, among others. Sullivan also brought in his former 3 Faces of Fear stable mates, with Avalanche wrestling as The Shark and The Butcher wrestling as The Zodiac.
The Dungeon would face Hogan’s squad in a War Games match, and failed to stop them despite the fact that Hogan’s teammate’s Lex Luger and Randy Savage didn’t even get along. Sullivan scored a major success at Halloween Havoc however, when they convinced Jimmy Hart to turn on Hulk Hogan and implement a contractual stipulation that saw Hogan be able to lose his title via DQ or count out in his match with the Giant. Hart ran in during the match and forced Hogan to be DQ’d to cause the title change.
The Dungeon of Doom and Four Horsemen had a shaky truce agreement as both groups wanted to go after Hogan, however Brian Pillman’s erratic behavior forced Sullivan to take action and try and control the “Loose Cannon”. They battled in a “Respect match” at Superbrawl ’96 which ended in a “worked shoot” as Pillman got on the mic and told Sullivan “I respect you Bookerman!” Pillman was granted a release from his WCW contract and with him out of the way, the Horsemen and Dungeon of Doom were able to align once again for a 8 on 2 giant cage match with Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, Lex Luger, Meng, Z- Gangsta, Ultimate Solution, Sullivan, and The Barbarian against Hogan and Randy Savage. In what has clearly gone down as an all-time mat classic, Hogan surprisingly overcame the odds to win….
Sullivan was then informed by WCW management that they wanted him to retire from the ring as long as he was the booker, so Sullivan was granted the chance to write himself off TV and he did so by starting a feud with Chris Benoit that would last over a year. Sullivan’s valet Woman (his real life wife) would be stolen by Benoit in the storyline and eventually in real life. Sullivan would add Ms. Jacquelyn to be his new valet. The Benoit wars would last until Sullivan lost a retirement match to him at Bash at the Beach in July of 1997. Sullivan then focused on booking until 1999 when Vince Russo put him back on air with Rick Steiner and Mike Rotunda as the reformed Varsity Club. After a few weeks he was back off TV and taking over for Russo as head booker. After a few months he was removed once again in favor of Russo and Eric Bischoff. Sullivan stayed with WCW until the bitter end.
Sullivan made one surprise appearance in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, as the referee for the first Clockwork Orange House of Fun match that was Raven’s creation for a match against Sandman. Effectively retired, Sullivan was taking independent bookings into at least 2012 and owns a gym near his home in Florida.
The Shoot:
The concept for this shoot is that Sullivan is Vince McMahon’s booker in 1984 and was just informed Hogan won’t be coming in and thus a new plan has to be made.
He starts by cutting Ivan Putski and Jay Strongbow due to age, and David Schultz due to his wild nature.
He scoops up Dusty Rhodes, Barry Windham, Blackjack Mulligan and Mike Rotunda from Florida.
Steve Williams, Butch Reed, JYD, Chavo Gurrero and Duggan from Mid South
Fabulous Ones, Mr. Saito, Superstar Graham, Heenan from the AWA
Rick Rude and Savage from Memphis
Ivan Koloff, Steamboat, Jay Youngblood, Ernie Ladd, Orton jr, Dick Slater and Gary Hart from JCP
He then takes the Von Erichs from WCCW in a move so improbable it infuriates me as they were co-owners and wouldn’t wreck their own business. This really points out the flaws in this Shoot concept.
He also takes the Freebirds and The Missing Link.
Siva Afi, Curt Hennig , Buddy Rose from Portland
Also infuriating is they don’t space out the talent arrivals, so they saturate the WWF with 25+ new names – most of who had top of the card potential, and so many guys are lost in the shuffle.
His first move is to put Ricky Steamboat over Iron Sheik in March for the World title after giving him 2 months of TV wins.
He also has Barry Windham against Paul Orndorff as the top undercard feud to build Orndorff up.
Sullivan then has Orndorff and Piper align and Steamboat gets the coconut head shot injury angle instead of Snuka – who saves Steamboat to set up a few months of tag matches until Orndorff takes the World title in August.
Kevin talks up how fans would think the World champion matches were real, even if the rest of the card was fake.
Sullivan gives broken down Superstar Graham a big push too and preps for Orndorff vs. Graham as his big World title bout to build towards.
Graham beats Muraco for the IC title in January
He takes Tony Atlas and Rocky Johnson as tag champs and jobs them to Terry Gordy and Michael Hayes.
Sullivan has the Freebirds blind JYD again that Summer and have him out till Christmas where he and Butch Reed battle the Freebirds.
He talks of the use of celebrities to build up the product and the New York advantage.
This culminates in an improbable “Supercard” consisting of SS Graham vs. Orndorff, Steamboat vs. Muraco and various undercard bouts that Sullivan pulls out of his bloated roster.
Final Thoughts: This was the first edition of the Guest Booker DVD series, and they were still working the kinks out. In later editions, the first portion is devoted to having the booker explain his philosophies and then move on to the meat and potatoes. Here they jumped in cold and touched on Kevin’s thoughts sporadically. On top of it all, Sullivan lazily just copies angles that already happened in several cases and misuses a bunch of talent based on where their careers were at in 1984. More frustrating to watch than enjoyable, and thankfully I believe this is the last Guest Booker DVD in my collection.
