Old Wrestling School (The Territories , NWA/WCW , ECW , AWA etc)

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Jim Herd is one of Cornette's favorite targets as well as Sullivan and Flair's. To say Jim Herd knew the business would be like saying David Arquette as WCW World Champion was a great idea. Anyhow one of the funniest videos I listened to last night had Cornette discuss Herd and the contract negotiations that he and Midnights had in 1989.


- Cornette brought up that by spring 1989 after Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard had left for WWF as well as the aborted Midnights vs Midnights angle crashed n burned due to Randy Rose leaving ; things weren't good. That they approached George Scott (who was the head booker at this point of WCW) and they asked him what plans they had. Scott told them he didn't have anything for them so they all 3 wanted to leave the company then and would leave when their contracts expired that fall. Scott agreed and said he would write them out in a few weeks.


- Well behind the scenes Scott suddenly was fired and a whole booking committee was established. Jim Ross was a key part of this and learned that the Midnights with Cornette was leaving. So he contacted him to stay which Cornette agreed. But felt the group needed time off to get over the fact they had been involved in some terrible matches and losses. As he laid it out Stan Lane and Bobby Eaton were banged up anyhow and needed time off to heal up so they would get 2-3 months off then return with a new focus etc. J.R agreed to this idea and told him to speak with Herd on a new contract.


- Cornette met with Herd for the 1st time and detailed how he knew the Midnight's and himself was being paid way too much. That they were being paid $225,000 a year which was very top of the line money and given to them by Jim Crockett at one point. So as Jim laid it out to Herd the guys and himself wanted to stay with WCW as they considered themselves loyal workers and would take a pay cut in line with everyone else in the company.


- Herd came back with an offer of $75,000 for Eaton & Lane ...and giving Cornette $100,000. But Jim was like , why would you wanna pay me more but as Herd claimed it was because Jim could do color commentary. Cornette rejected this offer saying the guys deserved to be paid in line in what Sting and others were at $150,000 a year. That he would take less but give the guys that. Herd at 1st rejected it and came back with a $90,000 offer for both guys and Cornette making $120,000. Each time Cornette would tell him that he didn't want more money and to pay Eaton & Lane more than him.

This continued for days as Herd would slowly make offers and Cornette would reject each one. At one point Herd told J.R "I ain't seen this type of thing since Korea War !" Finally Herd came back with an offer to pay Eaton & Lane $120,000 a year and Cornette $150,000. Which in 1989 money was really big. So he told them and both guys had families (Eaton had 3 kids to support) so they told Cornette to accept the offer. That they didn't care he was making more.

It boggled Cornette's mind that he would literally tell Herd he was fine being paid this amount of money and would take less , yet comically would each time get offered more every time. But it summed up how stupid Jim Herd was he felt.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Brian Pillman died sadly 20+ years ago but was considered one of the best performers to work in ring at one time. He became more famous for his LOOSE CANNON era of work where his shoot style comments and all became pretty famous. At one time Pillman in 1997 worked for WCW , ECW and the WWF. All in one year folks. Only Rick Rude was able to do that as well it seems within a year.

Pillman became a BIG star when he worked against Ric Flair in a singles match in 1990 and Flair was impressed.





Cornette discussed Pillman and how plans was to make him a main event star in 1990/1991 started...and then fizzled out.


- Before Flair quit the booking committee WCW was in a spot as they were looking at future main event stars to build. Cornette brought up to Flair beyond Sting they really didn't have a strong 2nd main event face to work. Because every time they went to build someone...either the guy would no show ; get injured or just not work out. So they were looking at the roster so Cornette asked Flair..."What do you think of Brian Pillman ?"

Flair was receptive to it as Pillman worked solid in ring. So both him and Flair laid out "The plan" for Brian Pillman.


- The angle would be that Pillman would be injured against the Midnight Express in a US Tag team title match. He always had the raspy voice due to throat operations as a kid. So Cornette would injure his throat and take him out. You would see the vignettes of Pillman in a neck brace barely able to speak as Zenk would. This would go on a couple weeks til the revenge match where if the Zenk/Pillman team won ; Pillman would get 5 minutes alone with Cornette to beat him up.

Zenk would be ambushed before the match and Pillman would go it alone...and beat both guys by himself. Then take down Cornette. In the end they would hand Pillman off to Flair at a Clash of Champions to say ...go do what you did with Sting years earlier. Everything seemed fine...


- They show up the next week to start the angle and Jim Barnett was there who told them ...no we can't do this. It will make Brian look weak. Which as Cornette knew was orders from Jim Herd to kill the angle due to anger at Midnight's and him. Their contracts would end after April and he didn't want to pay them. That they would be demanding more money for this big angle. Which was silly as it was for Pillman and not them.


- At the end the angle ran but not fully what they wanted and Flair would quit the committee later due to issues like this. Barnett told Cornette that if the angle didn't draw he would take the blame. 6 months later he told Barnett he was to blame as the angle didn't draw.

[Darkseid Is]

I used to think Pillman was an awful wrestler when I was a kid because he was Stone Cold's bitch. Much like I thought Dana Carvey sucked because he was the sidekick on Wayne's World. Then you grow up and realize Brian Pillman and Dana Carvey were amazing. I was a young stupid kid though

[Darkseid Is]

[Darkseid Is]

Okay I've had a few drinks. Can we talk about the American Dream Dusty Rhodes? I'm not an action figure guy, I have a couple Batman the Animated Series figures and a Darkseid and Orion figure, the only wrestling figure I own is the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. I'm a guitar player and I wrote on the back of my guitar "I have wined and dined with kings and queens... and slept in alley ways and dined on pork and beans" The greatest promo of all time, bar none. Give me Ric Flair, Stone Cold, The Rock, Jake, Piper, all amazing... but Dusty Rhodes puts everyone to shame on the mic. Since we're talking NWA and territories and all that, Dusty was fine in WWE. There were some fun matches with Macho Man and Ted Dibiase (which introduced Dustin, didn't it?) but he was at his best in the mid 80s, Jim Crocket, WCW all that. I mean, Ric Flair looked up to the guy. RIC FLAIR looked up to the guy. He was the Hulk Hogan of the 1970's.

Vince MacMahon Sr. would lend Andre the Giant to different promoters for whatever reason, if he borrowed their talent or did this or did that. Dusty was lent out like Andre. Why? It's obvious for Andre. A literal giant. A creature from mythology. Back in the day, having Andre on the card meant your show was sold out automatically. Dusty was the same way but he didn't look as impressive. You just had to give him a microphone and the show was sold out. The talent Dusty had was second to none. Even Jerry Lawler said it in an interview. People may think of Lawler now as puppies or whatever but he was a huge deal in Memphis. He said when he wrestled Dusty he knew what a star was. Dusty was the first "superstar" as they say (instead of saying wrestler). Amazing talent.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

A recent video about deaths of wrestlers we may not have known about is a sad one for the death I never realized. Its the passing of the ECW Zombie.




If no one remembers New ECW launched and the 1st show on SyFy aired. A condition on the show was that there be sci-fi elements in the show presentation. So Heyman & Dreamer took Kevin Thorne and made him a vampire with a hot witch in Shelly Martinez. But minutes before the show went to air a WWE executive ran up to Heyman telling him Vince wanted 1 more sci-fi element for the show.

So the 2 men scrambled and saw an indie worker named Tim Arson who had been trained by Johnny Rodz and been working since 2001. Arson really had bounced around Puerto Rico and indies awhile in WWC before working dark matches for WWE. Dreamer pitched some ideas and its said that they settled on a Zombie character. Arson growled like a zombie and got the role minutes before air.

While the ECW Zombie isn't considered a high mark for the New ECW and how terrible it would later become. It gave Arson a character he was allowed to use on the indies for his career. He would sadly pass away in 2015.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

In a shoot I listened to a few days ago...Cornette brought up the whole Midnights vs Midnights feud and how a promising angle went bust pretty quick. And it was due to havoc behind the scenes more or less.





- The seeds began of this back earlier. See when Cornette , Eaton and Lane got their big deals originally with Crockett in 1988 before he sold ; the others (Sting , Luger , Flair , Tully n Arn) were in the wings waiting to do their deals. Up to bat next was Arn & Tully who were gonna commend big money. But months after this Crockett was going through money issues. As Cornette claims he believed that he was gonna get big syndication money due to UWF and more...but that fell apart. So he couldn't keep Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard who bounced to WWF.


- This led into Dusty trying to think of a plan for the Midnight's and keep the money going since the program against the Horsemen was doing so well. It was fall/winter of 1988 and they needed a hot tag team angle. The idea to turn the Road Warriors heel really didn't work. So they needed a new top heel tag team and it made both think of Dennis Condrey who had left earlier in 1987. They also knew he was working with Randy Rose and doing the "Original Midnight Express" angle in AWA.


- So they decided to raid Verne's company and bring in those guys. Cornette knew Paul Heyman could sell the angle good too so both men could talk the angle then their guys could sell it in ring. So they did this early type of invasion angle because fans had just saw these guys on ESPN and now they were on Crockett's TV. The start was so good that everyone was happy with the result (Cornette was suggested to bleed for this angle and agreed)


- But within weeks problems set in. Dusty Rhodes was removed as head booker. Turner had bought the company by this stage and didn't want blood on the program. So this angle and then Dusty taking a spike to his socket caused them to remove him as booker. Cornette revealed that Crockett became the fill in booker til this was resolved. Then both Cornette and Heyman were told that they wouldn't get to travel to towns and only do TV with their tag teams. Both men wanted to sell the program and would pay their travel costs but was told to not do it.


- Crockett told Cornette he had no clue about booking long term and would just be around til they got someone. But within his time he soon told Cornette he didn't like Condrey's work and was trying to push him out. But before he could do this he was replaced by George Scott.


- Scott had no clue about any of this as Cornette claims that Scott once arrived and had no idea who Bobby Eaton was. That to him he wanted rid of the Cornette version of Midnight Express and to keep the Heyman one. Also Scott had issues with Randy Rose.


- After all this and the crazy things happening behind the scenes , Dennis Condrey saw how him and Rose was being done booking wise. As Scott and Crockett were trying to cool off the angle and he decided against showing up for his final PPV match and money. As Cornette joked he would go ride his horses than work there again. They had to get Jack Victory to come in and work the match (a Loser Leaves Town match). To finish off the angle which at this point was DOA.

[titanfan]

Ugh, I wanted them to bring back the Zombie every Halloween episode! I didn't realize they couldn't.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Ugh, I wanted them to bring back the Zombie every Halloween episode! I didn't realize they couldn't.

They could have til 2014 ...sadly like you I discovered in a video he had passed in 2015.

[mrluck_07]

Okay I've had a few drinks. Can we talk about the American Dream Dusty Rhodes? I'm not an action figure guy, I have a couple Batman the Animated Series figures and a Darkseid and Orion figure, the only wrestling figure I own is the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. I'm a guitar player and I wrote on the back of my guitar "I have wined and dined with kings and queens... and slept in alley ways and dined on pork and beans" The greatest promo of all time, bar none. Give me Ric Flair, Stone Cold, The Rock, Jake, Piper, all amazing... but Dusty Rhodes puts everyone to shame on the mic. Since we're talking NWA and territories and all that, Dusty was fine in WWE. There were some fun matches with Macho Man and Ted Dibiase (which introduced Dustin, didn't it?) but he was at his best in the mid 80s, Jim Crocket, WCW all that. I mean, Ric Flair looked up to the guy. RIC FLAIR looked up to the guy. He was the Hulk Hogan of the 1970's.

Vince MacMahon Sr. would lend Andre the Giant to different promoters for whatever reason, if he borrowed their talent or did this or did that. Dusty was lent out like Andre. Why? It's obvious for Andre. A literal giant. A creature from mythology. Back in the day, having Andre on the card meant your show was sold out automatically. Dusty was the same way but he didn't look as impressive. You just had to give him a microphone and the show was sold out. The talent Dusty had was second to none. Even Jerry Lawler said it in an interview. People may think of Lawler now as puppies or whatever but he was a huge deal in Memphis. He said when he wrestled Dusty he knew what a star was. Dusty was the first "superstar" as they say (instead of saying wrestler). Amazing talent.

The Rhodes/Graham feud drew quite well.

[EmeraldGladiator]

I never got to see the Bill Watts UWF except when I visited my grandmother who lived in Mobile, Al. I do remember seeing wrestlers I knew and liked down there like I saw Dr Death Steve Williams annihilate Hacksaw Jim Duggan in a rep your college football team like match. One thing that always stood out to me was Terry Taylor was the first guy I ever saw kick out of the Jake the Snake's DDT which had a pretty near 100% success rate and was considered the elite finisher at that time. This was before the era of the false finishes, I remember when Dusty kicked out of the Tully Blanchard's slingshot suplex (I was surprised he could use that move on someone of Dusty's girth). Then Ric Flair's Figure 4 went from his finisher and became an invitation to be reversed on him. So much so I wondered why he still used it since it never worked and ended up doing him more harm than good.

[EmeraldGladiator]

What is your favorite era, when your love was purest and the most extreme?
It is an easy choice for me, for while I can say the NWO invasion was probably the best storyline (how it started not the mess it became) I ever saw in wrestling it was wrestling mags, What if? come to life. My favorite era coincides with my favorite faction, the Four Horsemen. I always preferred the heels and for some reason Tully Blanchard is my favorite wrestler of all time. The Horsemen were the greatest stable ever imo loved most iterations from the originals all the way to the Chris Benoit Dean Malenko versions. However when my love for pro wrestling and Horsemen was at it's zenith was right after the Horsemen had jumped Dusty for the umpteenth time. The Horsemen were down one, only Flair, Tully and Arn so they had to prove they were still the top dogs. In fact everyone was curious about who would be the 4th? They repeatedly asked Ric who famously eventually told Shiavone, we are thinking maybe Barry Windham. Get out of here Ric and tell us the truth Tony replied. Barry had always been a babyface and thorn in the Horseman's side. I like most dismissed Ric's notion as crap. Back to the storyline they jumped Dusty, but Dusty came back as the Midnight Rider. You saw Dusty in a mask proclaiming to be the Midnight Rider sitting by a campfire. Everyone knew who he was, Dusty had a distinctive voice. The Horsemen were mad because Dusty had lost a loser leave or something or other and this was his way around it. Storyline has been done a few times but this one was different.

Kevin Sullivan who always on camera acted like he knew more about Dusty than the audience did. He called him by his real name (Virgil Riley Runnels) on multiple occasions. He came on TV and declared how the Midnight Rider wasn't just Dusty in a mask but some dark hidden demon in Dusty's soul that once released would basically burn the whole place down. I was worried, the Horsemen were not. They went on to go after the Midnight Rider like they would Dusty but that proved to be a mistake. The Midnight Rider was cruel, fast and unfeeling and unstoppable in a way that Dusty never was. (Maybe this a partial inspiration for the Crow Sting initially who was way more formidable and in a way cruel than day-glo Sting ever was). This Horsemen/Rider thing went on for a while with a false Midnight Rider being unmasked I think it was the Italian Stallion.

Finally however the Horsemen added the 4th member when Barry Windham turned on tag team partner and ex Horsemen Lex Luger, giving the Tag Titles to Tully and Arn and joining the faction. The new (and probably greatest version of the ) Four Horsemen are celebrating in the locker room when the Midnight Rider demands an explanation from Barry. Dusty was like an uncle to Barry. I remember the look on Flair and Tully's face at the audacity of Dusty to come into their locker room alone of course they jump him. Then I remember Barry Windham getting into a limo, raising up the 4 fingers through the eye holes of the Midnight riders mask as the show when off the air. That was wrestling at it's best for me as a youth.

[Darkseid Is]

There is that period in the mid to late 90s where everything was magic. Razor and Diesel were going to WCW, Stone Cold was becoming a house hold word. You can't beat that. People talk crap about Goldberg but he was a BIG deal. His undefeated streak and Stone Cold's rise to glory was the best era of wrestling. But you couldn't have done that without Hall and Nash being so cool and annoying and Vince being so hateable.

[XPac]

There is that period in the mid to late 90s where everything was magic. Razor and Diesel were going to WCW, Stone Cold was becoming a house hold word. You can't beat that. People talk crap about Goldberg but he was a BIG deal. His undefeated streak and Stone Cold's rise to glory was the best era of wrestling. But you couldn't have done that without Hall and Nash being so cool and annoying and Vince being so hateable.

I think the talemt and the characters in the WWE in the attitude era was absolutely amazing.

However, I think the actual wrestling on tv was actually surprisingly underwhelming. I think today the pure in-ring product is actually better.

[EmeraldGladiator]

It is a monument to mismanagement to see all the talent that was on the WCW/NWA side of the fence during that era as compared to the WWF and then realize that the WWF won the war. The WWF had the louder microphone but talent for talent WCW was stacked to the rim.