Would someone else have made wrestling what it is if vince hadn't?

[air_raid]

Come to think of it, maybe Crockett wouldn’t have ended up with a vastly greater level of success than they did if Vince Jr hadn’t bought and pushed on the (W)WWF as he did. Ultimately JCP was a very successful competitor for several years but ultimately where they fucked themselves and ended needing to sell to Turner was spending money without keeping an eye on if they had banked it yet. When the people running the gaffe have that in them, it’s destined to fail regardless of what the competition are doing. Yes, Vince went shit or bust on WrestleMania and gambled everything on rolling two sixes. But he knew what he was gambling, as opposed to Crockett, Barnett and the lads all riding in their private limos to Chicago to whoop it up at the massive gate they’ve drawn, blissfully unaware it doesn’t cover half what they’ve spent this week.

I’m sticking with the AWA, brother. Although they’d inevitably crash and burn too when the Hulk refuses to drop the belt to Greg Gagne.

[Chili]

Something I've been thinking about reading some of this. In this scenario is Vince's dad still the owner of the WWF and when he dies in 1984, who takes over the company? If he was still in charge in 1984 given real life he sold up to Vince Jr in 1982. Is Gorilla Monsoon running the shop?

Edited April 14 by Chili

[air_raid]

20 hours ago, Chili said:

Something I've been thinking about reading some of this. In this scenario is Vince's dad still the owner of the WWF and when he dies in 1984, who takes over the company? If he was still in charge in 1984 given real life he sold up to Vince Jr in 1982. Is Gorilla Monsoon running the shop?

Probably. Remarkable to think how Vince Sr would have blackballed Hogan over Rocky III had he stayed at the helm. Toots Mondt had to persuade him Bruno was the way to go, even before that. Sometimes you really need a groupthink rather than one bloke calling the shots. On a tangent, I love that Jim Barnetts final lasting contribution to wrestling was selling John Cena to Prichard as the next top guy, who in turn sold him to Vince.

[BomberPat]

On 4/13/2024 at 7:47 PM, JNLister said:

FWIW, Terry and Dory Funk sold the Amarillo territory in 1980 because they'd figured out cable TV would mean somebody went national and there'd be no room for local promotions.

This is key to it all, cable TV would have seen someone go national, the question would have just been whether or not they would have done so in the same way and with as much success as Vince McMahon did. I would assume that we'd probably have still seen Jim Crockett Promotions eventually become WCW, because Ted Turner would have remained loyal to professional wrestling as one of the backbones of his TV empire with or without the WWF to compete with.

As much as the official story is that Vince was uniquely ruthless and opposed to the NWA, the truth is that other territories were selling up or buying each other out, and the WWF were just better positioned financially and geographically than the rest of them. 

@air_raid Vince Sr's contribution to the WWWF really seemed to be in recognising the best ways to use TV, and to manage the business side of things, it really seems like the people around him were the power behind the throne. Certainly a lot of people in the early '70s still thought that Toots Mondt was pulling the strings, and Vince was just a figurehead - the truth is probably somewhere in-between, and Mondt was a liability in his own right in a lot of ways.

But I do think the importance of one guy calling the shots never truly works, because you'll always have too many blind spots. On Bruno, Vince Sr's concerns were that Bruno had been blackballed by a few promotions for no-showing so I don't think he wanted to take the gamble on him, while on Hogan it was a view that if wrestlers crossed over into Hollywood, it was just providing ammunition for critics to claim that wrestling was all acting; he passed on Andy Kaufman for the same reason.

[simonworden]

I've been thinking about this for a while as there's so many tangents to go off on. I certainly think a company would have gone national in the 80s but not to the level of the WWF if Vince wasn't around. 

Some things like Rock n Wrestling would have happend but on a smaller scale and probably more focussed on a Southern Style with Rock and Country artists over people like Lauper. 

We might have had edgier products on TV earlier or later depending on who pushed forward too so a definitive attitude era might not have happened. 

I think there would have likely been a few promotions on cable for longer with less of a market leader but collectively all having a smaller fan base than WWF had. Vince had that crucial balance between Carney wrestling promoter and business man with big ideas in balance. Other promoters were way too into what he would call the wrasslin way of doing things while a TV company taking a corporate approach would have been too far the other way. 

We wouldn't have ever had so many wacky gimmicks for sure. Another thing is would we have got a more pure style of wrestling on TV with less 4-5 minutes matches especially as it became in the late 90s.

[Carbomb]

It's interesting to read that there's confidence that the AWA might have been it if the WWF hadn't. Presumably because there would've been no other competitor to lure Hogan away? I watched a few shoot interview clips recently, like Bobby Heenan's, Beefcake's, Jesse Ventura's, and Greg Gagne's, regarding Hogan's jump to the WWF, and, with the exception of Gagne, they all appear to be of the opinion that Verne Gagne shat the bed when it came to Hogan, and that his promise to make Hogan the man simply came far too late. They all claim that Gagne was just too narrow-minded, sticking to his vision of what wrestling should be, which constituted an outdated, boring style of wrestling to the emergent crowds of the time, and that he felt Hogan and his character flew in the face of that.

[air_raid]

Probably didn't help that they were flogging Hogan's t-shirts and he wasn't seeing a penny. Although having said that... I forget where I heard that, so it might be Terry brand bullshit.

[Carbomb]

25 minutes ago, air_raid said:

Probably didn't help that they were flogging Hogan's t-shirts and he wasn't seeing a penny. Although having said that... I forget where I heard that, so it might be Terry brand bullshit.

Now that you mention it, I think someone mentioned something related to that, possibly Heenan: that Verne, finally capitulating grudgingly to the idea of making Hogan the main guy, offered to making him champ, but also wanted the AWA to essentially be his agent, claiming half his earnings for whatever he did, which just further cements how brainless their mindset was. This guy would've made them the premier brand in wrestling, drawing them a ton of cash to the point where they wouldn't have needed to take any commission off him. It just comes across like a small-minded, controlling, grasping promoter's attitude.

[Hannibal Scorch]

Yes. And I think it would have involved Ted Turner. What any organization needed was a TV deal and who better than someone who owned multiple networks screaming for content to have a promotion. Wrestling needed Cable TV as much as Cable TV needed Wrestling. Cheap filler content which people watched regularly. Vince Jr was a smart business man, but it was an absolute lightning in a bottle situation for all the success he had early on. Didn't the MTV thing happen because of Cyndi Lauper meeting Captain Lou on a plane and hitting it off, leading to his appearances in her music videos and than later to her being brought into WWF? Regardless, Vince and his millions wouldn't have worked out without getting Hulk Hogan signed. 

[Carbomb]

A thought occurs: if AWA had kept Hogan, or he'd gone to JCP, might the WWF have been able to do well with Randy Savage in the same spot? It's often been stated that the only reason he wasn't the guy in the Fed was Hogan, and that he was just as over, just as charismatic, just as capable of milestone matches, and had just as memorable a gimmick. What would the MTV/Rock n' Wrestling era have looked like with Macho Man at the forefront of it instead of Hogan? 

Obviously, this changes the nature of the original question somewhat, because it would have to assume that Vince did still do what he did, utilising TV and culture in the way that he did.

[air_raid]

21 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Yes. And I think it would have involved Ted Turner. 

I don't know if Ted would have ever bankrolled the creation of WCW (as a promotion rather than just the name of a TV broadcast/re-brand of JCP) if he hadn't had such a personal falling out with Vince over Georgia Championship Wrestling ; he'd probably have just carried on broadcasting other wrestling promotions' TV on his networks rather than buy one outright and pump a load of cash into it, rebrand it etc. McMahon's impersonation of Turner calling him to tell him "I'm in the rasslin' business" has been repeated a few times, I'm not sure he dives in headfirst and buys JCP if he didn't want to directly compete with Vinny Mc.

Edited April 15 by air_raid
Do it all to get them off their feet

[gmoney]

5 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

It's often been stated that the only reason he wasn't the guy in the Fed was Hogan,

Is it? By who? I adore Randy, one of my favourite wrestlers ever, but I don't think he'd have been nearly the star Hogan was if he'd been given the same push, He wouldn't have been given the same push for one thing. 

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, gmoney said:

Is it? By who? I adore Randy, one of my favourite wrestlers ever, but I don't think he'd have been nearly the star Hogan was if he'd been given the same push, He wouldn't have been given the same push for one thing. 

I can't point to anyone off the top of my head, but I've seen quite a few people on various commentaries, on here, on other online platforms - admittedly, these are all fans at the end of the day, so it would all have to be taken with a pinch of salt. It never occurred to me that Savage was ever on Hogan's level until I saw this many people saying it. 

Would he not have been given the same push if Hogan wasn't around? I genuinely can't think of anyone in the WWF at the time who would've enjoyed the same kind of attention and popularity - Andre was on the tail end of his career, Piper was great but better suited to heeldom at the time, and most of the other faces at the time were fun but not exactly main-event.

[air_raid]

On 4/15/2024 at 5:38 PM, Carbomb said:

Would he not have been given the same push if Hogan wasn't around? I genuinely can't think of anyone in the WWF at the time who would've enjoyed the same kind of attention and popularity - Andre was on the tail end of his career, Piper was great but better suited to heeldom at the time, and most of the other faces at the time were fun but not exactly main-event.

Well, we're a little at crossed purposes here, but Savage got over really strong initially as a heel working Hogan all over the country, and thats when people realized how good he was - later, in combination with the sympathy Liz got, it made for a logical babyface turn. So the question might not really be "would Savage have got the same push as a babyface in a world without Hogan in New York" as "would Savage have got over as strong in 85 if he's wrestling a different babyface?" As to who that babyface would have been...... still Bob Backlund? I mean, a maniac like Savage would have been a good foil for straightlaced Bobby and his atomic drops, but would it have drawn?

It's still a question for the Vince Jr debate - no Jr to overrule Sr historically blackballing the Hulk, possibly no Hogan for Savage to work. I'm still slightly bitter "Irish" Terry Hogan never saw the light of day, to be honest. Bruno drew the Italians, Pedro drew the Hispanic... let's get the Irish New Yorkers in the building!! Actually, that probably answers my question as to who might supplant Backlund if there's no Hulkster. He may have been 44 at the time but maybe it was time to pull the trigger on Polish Power! Who Randy ended up working later on anyway, albeit for the ICT.

[WeeAl]

The only two names I've ever seen that were to be Vince's choice in 83/84 if he didn't go with/get Hogan were Kerry Von Erich and going with Snuka. Both wouldn't have worked. It doesn't matter who was available in '85, they would have likely been coming in on the back of a failed national expansion rather than riding the coat-tails of a successful one. 

What's likely to be the least disastrous out of these, and would it have lasted past any possible initial success;

- JCP/Mid South with the best product but not the financial discipline. 

- AWA keeping Hogan as a plus but Gagne as the negative. 

- WWF with Vince's expansion plans but the wrong guy at the front of the spear. 

I imagine JCP would have been the top dog in that scenario, however still needing a bail out, just a few years later than when it actually happened.