Death of the Territories

by Tim Hornbaker

  But in terms of the success of World Class Wrestling, their problems couldn’t have come at a worse time. The promotion was in the midst of a financial boom unlike anything it had experienced before, and the Von Erichs were ring royalty. Their faces were plastered on the covers of national wrestling magazines, and the syndicated Dallas TV program increased their fame in cities far from Texas. Adkisson had struck gold with the protracted Von Erich–Freebirds war, and David, Kevin, and Kerry battled Michael Hayes, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts across the territory with exceptional returns.

  Three major “Star Wars” shows were staged at the Reunion Arena in downtown Dallas in 1983, and each drew more than 19,000 spectators. On June 17, 21,000 paid $300,000 at the gate to see Kevin Von Erich challenge the NWA world heavyweight champion Harley Race in a highly charged bout. The match ended when David Von Erich entered the ring to stop Race’s onslaught on his brother, who had suffered an arm injury, and established David as the next logical contender to the NWA belt. Both David and Kerry became champions before leaving the building that night in Dallas, David going over Jimmy Garvin for the Texas title and Kerry winning the American tag straps from Hayes and Gordy with Bruiser Brody as his partner. On November 24, World Class returned to the Reunion Arena, and this time Kerry beat Hayes in a loser-leaves-town match before 19,000 fans. Garvin was also involved in a hot feud with English wrestling sensation Chris Adams, and the two traded the American heavyweight championship several times.

  There was another big happening that night. Nineteen-year-old Mike Von Erich, the fourth son of Jack Adkisson, made his wrestling debut and defeated Skandor Akbar. Tall and skinny, Mike was immediately embraced by the home crowd, and he worked through his greenness to display vast potential. The following month, on Christmas night, World Class staged its final Reunion Arena program of the year, with 19,675 people eager to see David Von Erich dethrone Ric Flair for the NWA belt. The audience didn’t get the finish they wanted, but David did end up with a DQ victory, solidifying his place as a top world title challenger. As in Mid-South, sportsmanship and credibility were principal elements of the Dallas promotion. Adkisson was extremely protective of wrestling’s insider secrets and went out of his way to shield his sons from anything that would cast a negative shadow on their careers or his business, including allegations of drug abuse.

  Rumors circulated that Adkisson was working behind the scenes to influence the NWA hierarchy to give David a run with the world title. As mentioned earlier, David was actually a member of the NWA board of directors, and he was in maybe the most unique position of any active professional wrestler for that reason. For Adkisson, getting one of his sons the championship was a primary goal, and there was speculation that David was going to beat Harley Race for the championship sometime before the end of 1983. However, those plans changed when Flair regained the NWA belt at Starrcade in November. If David was getting the championship — and it was still a big if — the title change was probably going to occur sometime in early 1984.

  Part of Adkisson’s close network of allies was the head of All Japan Pro Wrestling, Shohei “Giant” Baba, a three-time NWA world champion himself. Baba and two of his protégés, Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu, had captured the attention of Dallas fans during the June 17, 1983, Reunion Arena show. As part of the talent exchange between the promotions, wrestlers also went to the Far East. On February 10, 1984, David Von Erich arrived in Tokyo to begin a three-week tour for Baba. But before the first show took place, he was found dead in his hotel room. The 25-year-old’s death stunned the international wrestling community. It was determined that Von Erich had suffered from acute enteritis (inflamed intestine), which may have triggered a heart attack. There was gossip that his death was caused by substance abuse, and Kevin didn’t waste any time telling a reporter that his brother was “in no way, shape, or form involved in drugs.”151 Von Erich’s tragic death reverberated to all corners of the wrestling world, and fans in Dallas took it especially hard. More than 3,000 people attended his funeral, and Ric Flair, Dory and Terry Funk, and Verne Gagne were among those on hand to pay their respects.

  The wrestling business lost another influential figure during the first half of 1984. Vincent James McMahon, the founder of the World Wide Wrestling Federation, and the man who had unified the northeastern territory into one thriving operation, passed away on May 27, 1984. At 69 years old, McMahon Sr. succumbed to cancer after a long fight and was laid to rest at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in North Lauderdale, Florida. Across the wrestling landscape, admiration for McMahon poured in from his peers, pundits, and the public alike, and his accomplishments spoke for themselves.152 No other promoter in history had ruled the metropolises of the Northeast single-handedly like he had, and when his son purchased the WWF in 1982, he acquired wrestling’s greatest enterprise.

  Over his last year, it is believed that McMahon Sr. fielded many calls from contemporaries who wanted to know what his son was up to. Individuals like Verne Gagne, a longtime associate with a track record of good business dealings with the elder McMahon, paid a heavy price in McMahon Jr.’s late 1983 talent raid.153 Bob Geigel was hammered in St. Louis when the WWF arrived, and McMahon Jr. not only seized a prime TV spot, but resumed wrestling at the Chase Hotel. And throughout the early part of 1984, as the WWF targeted local TV acquisitions, a new group of promoters were coping with the harsh new realities. Although McMahon Sr. had remained an advisor to his son, his days calling the shots were over. He’d earned universal respect over the course of his lengthy, hall of fame career, and now with his death, it was up to his son to sink or swim in the new wrestling environment he was creating. Either McMahon Jr. would reshape the industry, or he was going to fail miserably, and the business was going to snap back to its original configuration without much fallout. The latter was unlikely, but the jury was still out.

  Chapter Nine

  An Industry at War

  The wrestling industry was facing a level of competition unlike anything before, and promoters were scrambling to ensure their businesses didn’t descend into chaos. The competition wasn’t only from Vince McMahon Jr., but from each other as well. Although promotional unions such as the National Wrestling Alliance maintained the peace amongst affiliated members, there was still enough anxiety to keep everyone on their toes. The threat of a deep pocketed rival with national aspirations was hard to comprehend, and there was no established precedent in terms of a proper defense. Many years earlier, the NWA had been powerful enough to curtail oppositional groups, and often simply intimidated foes by its size and strength. The Alliance flaunted its authority at times, and with exhaustive political ties, vast cash resources, and a steady leader like Sam Muchnick, the organization stopped many adversaries in their tracks. By 1984, though, the NWA was lacking nearly all of those attributes and was susceptible to any number of problems, including internal dissension.

  Promoters were coping with an increased number of challenges during an extraordinary period in history. First and foremost, they absolutely had to keep their top talent happy. With the open option to migrate to a non-NWA promoter, for better pay and national publicity, wrestlers were viewing the road to the WWF a little differently than they had in years past. The NWA could no longer threaten a grappler with blacklisting, as they’d done in the 1950s.154 The loss of a headline wrestler like Hulk Hogan on basically no notice was crippling. Verne Gagne, who had his star booked weeks in advance with good presales, crushed fans expecting to see Hogan live. Gagne didn’t help matters by not quickly changing local advertisements when he knew Hogan was going to be a no-show.

  With good reason, people were less prone to support a promotion that pulled the bait-and-switch routine. In early 1984, Jim Crockett lost Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine to the WWF, and it was no secret that McMahon was actively hunting for more big names to add to his roster. When wrestlers did jump to the WWF, organizations had to replace their losses. Up and down the lines, the talent ran
ks tightened. Gagne called on a semi-retired friend, 57-year-old the Crusher, to help fill the void left by Hogan, but in most situations, promoters pulled in workers from other groups. It was an accordion effect — one promotion after another was hurt by the talent grab, leaving vacancies all over the place.

  Smaller independents, such as International Championship Wrestling out of Lexington, Kentucky, were the last rung on the talent ladder. Serving parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Illinois, ICW had been a direct opponent of NWA and AWA-affiliated promoter Jerry Jarrett since 1978. There was legitimate hostility between the two operations, and the rivalry between ICW’s Randy “Macho Man” Savage and Jerry “The King” Lawler was a feud just waiting to be exploited. In late 1983, facing heavy financial hardship, ICW owner Angelo Poffo made a deal with Jarrett, and Savage debuted on Memphis TV in early December. Of course, Savage wanted a piece of Lawler, and the invasion angle was a huge hit with fans. An explosive, brash persona, Savage was taking a big step toward greater fame and, over the following months, he feuded with Lawler, captured the Mid-America and International titles, and garnered mainstream attention.

  As for Lawler, by early 1984, he was in the midst of his 36th reign as Southern champion, and his lengthy feud with Jimmy Hart’s First Family dominated Memphis headlines. He battled the likes of Lord Humongous, Sabu the Wildman, and future superstar Rick Rude. In one particularly memorable storyline, Lawler was prompted to team with heel Jos LeDuc, who was also managed by Hart, and on March 12, 1984, they beat J.J. Dillon’s Zambuie Express for the AWA Southern tag team belts. On the whole, Jarrett’s Memphis promotion was never dull, with spirited gimmicks (Man Mountain Link, Harley Davidson, and the Executioner, for example), hot matches, and solid talent. Jarrett also featured King Kong Bundy, Dutch Mantell, Austin Idol, and the Rock and Roll Express. The Fabulous Ones were popular as well, but they were on the way out, and they ventured to the AWA during the latter part of March.

  Memphis and the AWA had maintained a good partnership for nearly six years, and Lawler was a principal challenger to AWA world champion Nick Bockwinkel. The arrivals of the Fabulous Ones, Larry Zbyszko, and several others were part of Verne Gagne’s effort to reignite his territory following a disastrous period of uncertainty. Since late 1983, with the exit of Hulk Hogan and Gene Okerlund, fans had let AWA officials know just how unhappy they were. Attendance dipped in most cities on the circuit, and on January 15, 1984, the audience in the AWA’s homebase of St. Paul booed fan favorites unmercifully.155 Jesse Ventura, a strongman heel with a gift for gab, was roundly cheered, and Gagne reportedly asked Ventura to turn hero in the wake of Hogan’s departure. Ventura rejected the idea.

  Looking to strengthen the promotion’s alliances and bring in new faces, Gagne reached out to an old friend, Eddie Einhorn, a minority owner and president of the Chicago White Sox. Back in the 1970s, Einhorn headed an independent promotion known as the International Wrestling Association and ran opposition to the major organizations. His ideas were fundamentally strong, but he faced too many hurdles in bucking the establishment, and the IWA folded. Einhorn had been a TV executive prior to joining the Sox in 1981, and he and Gagne discussed the possibility of creating a nationally syndicated wrestling show. Their talks were at the preliminary level, but it was an exciting avenue that both men wanted to further pursue.

  Out in San Francisco, the AWA was losing ground and took a big loss on January 31, 1984, when only 1,000 people attended a show at the Cow Palace. The WWF didn’t seem to be doing much better. Vince McMahon lost his local TV on San Jose’s channel 36, but refused to give up. In late February or early March 1984, he traveled to San Francisco and met with James Gabbert, owner of channel 20 (KTZO), the station that broadcast Gagne’s weekly program, All-Star Wrestling. McMahon offered to pay Gabbert $2,000 a week to feature WWF content in place of the AWA.156 In contrast, Gagne was providing his show for free, and though Gabbert had been cleaning up in commercial time, the WWF was proposing the weekly fee (inflated to as much as $5,000 in some reports) plus all advertisement revenue. Gabbert agreed to the proposition, and since Gagne didn’t have a contract, the WWF immediately took over the timeslot on Saturday mornings, leaving the AWA high and dry.

  As if losing Hogan and Okerlund weren’t bad enough, having his San Francisco television outlet ripped out from underneath him was a personal affront to Gagne. And since the AWA was already committed to a Cow Palace show on March 24, 1984, and now had no TV to promote the event, the program was a predestined box-office bomb. Gagne did manage to obtain a new station (channel 26) about a week prior to the card, but the March 24 effort drew only 900 people. The WWF added a second TV outlet in northern California, signing on with a Sacramento station, and entered that city for a live event on March 9. On April 30, 1984, McMahon debuted in Oakland, and the WWF drew an impressive 10,200 spectators. Andre the Giant won an 18-man battle royal, which also included Hogan, Jimmy Snuka, and Pat Patterson. Hogan was victorious as well, winning his singles bout against Tiger Chung Lee.

  The AWA survived the turbulence. Nick Bockwinkel stepped off the throne after a loss to Jumbo Tsuruta in Tokyo on February 23, 1984, and for a variety of reasons, gates began to rebound in March. Chicago fans responded to the reunion of the Crusher and Dick the Bruiser tag team, and on March 4, more than 18,000 people packed the Rosemont Horizon. The Freebirds, Stan Hansen, Jerry Lawler, and Montreal stars Dino Bravo and Rick Martel were part of the supporting cast. Amazingly, an even larger crowd was on hand in St. Paul on March 25 to see Crusher and Greg Gagne best Jerry Blackwell and Sheik Adnan El Kaissey. There is little doubt, however, that Verne Gagne was jolted by a tidbit of news in the Minneapolis Tribune on April 15, 1984. The blurb stated that a new program entitled Superstars of Wrestling was going to appear on channel 11 on Saturday evenings.157 With Superstars now on the TV lineup, it could only mean one thing: The WWF was on its way to the Twin Cities.

  From an outsider’s point of view, McMahon’s hostile actions toward the AWA appeared to be nothing short of a vendetta. But according to Gene Okerlund, who spoke with a Minneapolis reporter in May, such a claim was far from the truth. “Vince McMahon Jr. . . . doesn’t want to drive [the AWA] out of business,” he explained. “Verne Gagne and Wally Karbo are still going to be able to exist.”158 Needless to say, Gagne wasn’t going to express any kind of gratitude for that statement. A world-class athlete in his younger days, he was no stranger to legitimate competition, and was fully prepared to defend the Twin Cities and the rest of his territory from WWF aggression. He didn’t need anyone reaffirming the future of his company, and later told Minneapolis CityBusiness, “We were here before the WWF and we’ll be here long after they are gone.”159

  McMahon’s Minnesota incursion could’ve been much worse for Gagne. Apparently, when the WWF boss first got to the Twin Cities, he visited the office of Stu Swartz, general manager of KMSP (channel 9), the home station for the AWA. Once there, he offered a six-figure, upfront cash payment to replace the AWA with WWF programming. A deal of that magnitude would’ve made anyone stop in their tracks, but Swartz ultimately declined the offer. Undisturbed, the ever-motivated McMahon took his business over to WTCN (channel 11), which had been the flagship station for the AWA between the 1950s and ’70s, and an agreement was made. Superstars of Wrestling debuted on April 21, 1984 at 6:00 p.m.

  With so many former AWA stars on the WWF payroll, everyone knew a Twin Cities invasion was inevitable. Besides Hogan and Okerlund, McMahon had Sgt. Slaughter, the Iron Sheik, Don Muraco, and Andre the Giant, all AWA vets, plus recent signees Adrian Adonis, Dick Murdoch, and David Schultz. Featuring local wrestling veterans on WWF TV and at live events was part of McMahon’s wider strategy going into new territories. To connect to fans who didn’t necessarily know the WWF product, he wanted to highlight familiar faces, wrestlers who’d worked that region prior for regional promoters. These recognizable grapplers would help induce people to watch McMahon’s production and serve a
s somewhat of a bridge between the wrestling they were used to seeing and the new WWF style. For many purists of the AWA and NWA, the WWF was quite dissimilar in terms of presentation, booking, and genuine action. To garner the attention of AWA and NWA loyalists, McMahon packed his cards with high-quality attractions and placed an emphasis on name value over in-ring skill.

  The WWF wasn’t Gagne’s only concern. Unfavorable publicity surrounded an unscheduled brawl involving two of his stars, Ken Patera and Mr. Saito.160 Instead of a headline match at a local arena, their bout occurred at a Holiday Inn, and their opponents were 15 Waukesha, Wisconsin, police officers. The April 6, 1984, incident saw both grapplers arrested after a lengthy battle. At least four officers were hospitalized, and one was forced to retire because of her injuries. Charged with multiple counts of battery, Patera and Saito were sentenced to two-year prison terms in 1985.161 Gagne dealt with the challenges as they appeared and kept the AWA chugging along. On May 13, 1984, the day after the WWF debuted on WTCN, the world heavyweight championship changed hands at a show in St. Paul. Quebecer Rick Martel, a strong and athletic wrestling prodigy whom Gagne had taken under his wing, beat Jumbo Tsuruta to capture the belt — a decision by Gagne that attempted to dispel the conjecture that the AWA was nothing but an old man’s promotion.

  McMahon’s aggressive actions continued to motivate rivals. Jim Crockett was in the best position to counter the push of the WWF by advancing into McMahon’s northeastern stronghold from his Mid-Atlantic location. It also helped that Crockett’s TV already reached the New York City area by way of WXTV (channel 41), a Spanish-language station. Viewers responded to the immense talent in Crockett’s territory, and the show grew a large following. Crockett solidified his partnership with Ole Anderson and, in early May 1984, an ambitious 17-city national tour was announced on Anderson’s WTBS cable broadcast.162 Promoter Gary Juster appeared on camera in the segment, and was acknowledged as the NWA’s representative in Baltimore and at the Meadowlands in New Jersey.