Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Time for the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Podcast.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: We've got lots and lots of things.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: To talk about and to do today.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Covering the territories from the 1940s to the 1990s.
[00:00:13] Speaker C: It's the best thing going today.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Interviewing wrestlers, referees, authors and other media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: The cream, yeah, the cream of the crop.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: And now, here's your host, Tony Richards.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Hey everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. I'm your host, Tony Richards, and I'm coming to you live and direct from the Richards Ranch in Western Kentucky. The Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel History Podcast is all about the history of the territory era of professional wrestling. And in my framework that I've done, I start around 1925, and in 10 year periods, about seven of them, the first period is from 25 to 1935. The second period is from 1935 to 1945, 1945 to 1955, and on and on and on until 1995, where the last remaining wrestling territory is pretty much the Tennessee Memphis territory with kind of flames out in 97. But most of them are gone as you get into 1990 and 1995. The AWA fails, the Texas Promotion, World Class Wrestling fails.
They're all gone by 95 pretty much. And so I've created this framework to take you through the 10 year periods in the Territory era so you can see what the Territory era was all about, what the territories were all about. The power of the booking offices, the power of the National Wrestling alliance and later the AWA and the wwwf. That's all what we talk about here. And so since we are a wrestling history podcast that focuses on the territory era, I thought in January we would go back in time 40 years to 1985.
We're about to go into 1976, and we're about to go into 1986 with our regular podcast show. But in January, we're going to kick off the year by going back to 1985 and reviewing the first year in that last period that the territories were around.
The last stage of growth that I have in my model is from 1985 to 1995. And the foundational year that kicks off that Last run from 85 to 95 is that period that we're going to talk about here for the next four to five weeks at the Time Tunnel. And today I'm going to be joined by my good friend and my WWF analyst and commentator, Steve Giannarelli. Now to kind of set the stage for you here. We know that the surviving territory of the territory era is the WWF.
They emerged from the Territory era in 95 and they eventually emerged from just being basically the only pro wrestling company in the year 2000, 2001.
So we know that they are going to win in this paradigm shift that changes the wrestling business.
And 1985 is a critical year for that.
So as we look at the remaining territories, we're going to look at Mid South Wrestling, we're going to look at World Class Wrestling, we're going to look at Portland, we're going to look at Tennessee, we're going to look at championship wrestling from Florida, we're going to look at Jim Crockett Promotions and we're going to try to look at the AWA and we're going to try to look at the Alabama promotion, Southeastern Wrestling that Ron Fuller owned. We're going to try to look at all of those remaining territories in 1985 and we're going to talk about the matches they had, the wrestlers they had, the angles and programs they ran, the attendance, the decisions they made in 1985 that would impact the going forward into this first year of the last stage of the territory era. And so we're going to start out with the one that's going to eventually win, that's the WWF. And we're going to look at their 1985.
They had an amazing 1985. I mean, Vince McMahon is the CEO and the chairman of Titan Sports.
He's got George Scott as his creative booker who's handling the wrestling angles and the wrestlers and the programs. He has got Dick Ebersole from NBC involved in his television. He's got Jim Barnett who revolutionized television and wrestling in the 1950s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Jim Barnett is there working with the television. He's got Zane Bresloff and Jerry Briscoe working with the arenas.
I mean, they got into Florida in 1985 and ran the Sundome in Tampa, probably due to the efforts of Jerry Briscoe, who was in Florida for many, many years. He's got Linda McMahon on his staff and she is the data analyst and the person who is running the administrative operational part of the office and doing an amazing job of taking care of running surveys and looking to see what the feedback is from the fans on the talent and the wrestlers. And of course Vince himself, who is probably the guy who's making the connections with Cyndi Lauper and with the Mr. T, the celebrity end of the business. That's probably mostly Vince and the wrestling. The Greg Valentine, Tito Santana, the Hulk Hogan and Terry Funk, all of those things are mainly George Scott. But the WrestleMania with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T versus Roddy Piper. And that's probably George. George Scott, who had those relationships in Jim Crockett Promotions for the most part. But let's not delay any further. I got plenty of things to tell you that are cool that we're doing here at the Time Tunnel, and I will tell you about those things when we get finished. But right now, let's go to the conversation here at the Richards Ranch with my good friend Steve Giannarelli as we review the territory of the WWF in the year 1985. Well, here we go into 2026, and we've got a bunch of special shows to mark our transition from going from 2025 to 2026.
And I want to cover over a couple of weeks period here leading into the new year, a review of 1985 and focus on the remaining territories that are still around in 1985.
And also a little bit on the national expansion that's happening with several of the territories. And so we've lost a W here, Steve.
Normally we do the 3WF review, but we've lost a W in the last couple of years. So we're down just as WWF now.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Right, right. We're talking about the expansion era, as we like to call it.
The expansion era, I would say, kind of started in 83 with all the maneuverings that Vince was starting to do.
I mean, he was taking the promotion to new markets like Los Angeles and Detroit and parts of Ohio they had never been to before.
1984 was just a huge expansion into California, you know, really pretty much anywhere in the United states.
But. But 1985 is probably best remembered for being in the year of WrestleMania 1, where kind of all the stuff they did in 1984 culminated.
And it was, you know, Roddy Piper and Orndorff against Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. And of course, Cyndi Lauper was there. And. And that was the major event.
There had been Starrcade before that, but this was Vince's first major national event.
We had had Shea Stadium shows prior to that. But this was the first national event that really gave the WWF a ton of nationwide exposure. Along with those MTV specials he had done in 84. Those were huge as well. So.
But, but Tony, what would you like to know about 85? What would you like to talk about?
[00:09:46] Speaker C: Well, let's talk about how 1984 ended.
What. What was the culmination of 84 going into 85?
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Well, as fans, we didn't know that there would be a WrestleMania. We didn't know where all this was taking. And. And I would say that in 84, there were some major stories which I can briefly summarize.
I would say Roddy Piper was probably the focal point or the. The one MVP of the promotion, because from the minute he came in, he was the. The heat stir. He was the guy stirring the pot that he destroyed Frankie Williams and a very famous Piper's pit. And he had a big angle, big feud with Jimmy Snuka, which was featured most of the year in 84.
I would also say the other major storyline in the WWF that year was the huge feud between Sergeant Slaughter and the Iron Sheik, which was really a great feud and series of matches that really made Sergeant Slaughter arguably as popular as Hulk Hogan himself.
And 84 was Hulk's first year as champion.
And he really didn't get into any kind of major feuds with the exception of kind of the. The hinting of the. The war between him and Piper that was like this brewing festering thing that would culminate in the first WrestleMania. But I also have to mention, of course, the big angle they did with Lou Albano and Cyndi Lauper on Piper's pit, and that culminated in December. You know, to close out 84, this was one of the big angles that kind of created WrestleMania.
Cyndi Lauper @ Madison Square Garden is giving Lou Albano this record for his philanthropic work. And Roddy Piper comes in the ring and hits Lou Albano over the head with it. And a whole bunch of New York cops run in the ring and it's just a melee ensues.
And that led to all the hype for WrestleMania. After that, this became a big deal.
So. So that's how we went from.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: 84, 85, and George Scott was the booker in the WWF. And I think what's interesting to me is George had had a really hot 1980 and 1981 in Jim Crockett. And two of his hottest heels were Roddy Piper and the Iron Sheik.
So he knew what he was doing there by. By bringing those guys in. He knew what they had already demonstrated they were capable of. And so he wasn't taking a huge risk with those guys. He knew they'd be hot. And of course, the New York audience had never seen either one of those guys, had.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: They?
Well, the Iron Sheik had been in. In 79, he was called the Great Hussein Arab or Arab. And he. He did have a kind of a brief feud with Backlin and, and he was in the promotion in 83. And when they signed or announced the match between Backland and the Iron Sheep, none of us, you know, smart fans or serious fans believed that, you know, Iron Cheek, he's not going to win the title from Backlink. There was no reason to think that because he was never really given a big, big push like so many of the other challengers had. And of course he ends up winning. And of course he ended up being the perfect person for Hulk Hogan to defeat. You know, Hulk Hogan, the blonde, larger than life, all American beating the bald, ugly Iranian. You know, it's just kind of rights itself. But, but that's how that all started. But, but you, you mentioned something very interesting that I think we need to discuss further about George Scott and his influence on the whole scene in the whole wwf.
I think Jim Crockett Promotions, you know, one of their few errors in judgment that they made along the. Along the way, they somehow decided, we don't want to send our wrestlers up to Toronto, it's too much trouble. We'd rather draw big gates here in the Carolinas. Which is all well and good, but they didn't know that Toronto would become this burgeoning, exploding market. And George Scott knew that it would.
And he got guys like, you know, Piper Valentine for the wwf. And I think it was George Scott along with Jack Tunney and the remaining Tunnies that kind of decided, well, we'll go with Vince. We'll give him a try. The Crockets don't want to send his talent, but Vince is willing to. And in 83 they had some shows where it was kind of a mix. I mean, you see shows in 83 where Vince sent some talent. There was guys, Canadian stars there, there were Mid Atlantic guys all on the same card. But eventually by 84, you know, later 84 it becomes all WWF and Vince is, you know, buying Calgary promotion from Stu Hart and he's starting to run shows in Montreal and he's doing TV tapings in Brantford, Ontario.
So this, this Canada is becoming a huge part of the WWF like it had never ever been before.
And I think that was a part, a huge part of the reason why they succeeded. Compared to Crockett, those areas, the Toronto, Detroit was such big areas for them. That's why they had that huge event in 86 where Orndorff and Hogan drew 66,000 and of course WrestleMania 3 in Detroit, because there was such a demand to have a large event in a football stadium for the blow offs of Those feuds like Hogan against Andre and Savage against Steamboat and Piper against.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Adonis.
Well, and, you know, without knowing a whole lot of the details, I can sort of put together in my mind a little bit on that because George Scott had two big runs in Toronto as a wrestler. He had one as the Great Scott as a single. And then he and Sandy Scott as the Flying Scots had great run into Rono. And then George booked it for Crockett for quite some time. But Jimmy Crockett didn't have that kind of experience.
He didn't, you know, that was already a deal that was in place by the time he came in to run the company.
And I'm sure without having a long term strategic thought process in his head, I don't think when they made the decision to not run Toronto anymore, national expansion was the farthest thing from his mind.
You know, he didn't have the vision that he would have in 1985.
He was thinking more about economies of scale and just running their home territory rather than having to do the twice a month Sunday run to Maple Leaf Gardens. And as you said, that was in the long view, a very strategic.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: Mistake.
Right, right.
I mean, in considering what you just said, I mean, there wasn't Starcade 83 that really kicked off all these pay per views and all these big circuit events.
Do you feel that at that time that Jim Crockett just wanted to maintain his base in the Carolinas or in the south and you didn't. You feel like he didn't even know that Vince was going to do what he was going to.
[00:17:40] Speaker C: Do?
Yeah, I don't, I don't think he thought. I don't think he started thinking about that until maybe sometime in 84.
I think Starcade was just meant to be.
I think Jimmy originally just wanted two or three big shows a year.
And in 85, in 84 and 85, they tried to run a couple of other shows as big shows that we never heard from again. Shows like silver star 85. And they wouldn't have the legs that a great American bash would have. Right. Where the bash still is around today. But Silver Star never went any farther. Right. They had a, you know, the, the, the big show in 83 that backed up the traffic in Greensboro with Youngblood and Steamboat against Sergeant Slaughter.
That was sort of a, a precursor to a big show. Right.
But I don't think, I just thought he thought, you know, there's four quarters in a year and, you know, every three months we could have, you know, a big show and Then we'll have a big blow off show for Thanksgiving, which Crocketts had a big Thanksgiving show going back to 1970.
Every Thanksgiving, Greensboro had a Thanksgiving card, and they also had one in Greensboro.
Norfolk, Virginia was also their Thursday night town and they had a big Thanksgiving show there. So they had two Thanksgiving shows pre dating Starrcade.
So Starrcade really was just sort of an amplification of what they had been doing for many, many years, except they added in the closed circuit component to it and started making more of a big deal out of it as a super show, taking the Thanksgiving card and putting some rocket fuel on it, in other.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Words.
[00:19:40] Speaker C: Right. I don't, I don't think until 84, they really thought too much about it really becoming more of a national.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Event.
I, I mean, I, I think that Oli Anderson, who was like running Georgia at the time, he was the booker and, you know, he was there with Barnett and everything before the Black Saturday happened. I, I am, I, I feel comfortable saying Ole. Anderson knew that there was going to be a promotional war, that they wanted to expand the Georgia promotion and they were wanting to move closer to the Northeast and do shows maybe in the Northeast or at least on those lines that were kind of gray areas.
I know the observer talked about such things, and I just find it weird that Crockett couldn't really see. I mean, I know Dusty was his idea guy, but I mean, it just seems, it just seems obvious almost in retrospect that, well, you know.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: Why? I don't. You know why I don't think that. Steve, let me. You mentioned something that just made me think about that Jack and Jerry Briscoe did want to go.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: National.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: Okay. Right. And then when Oli really kind of balked on it, then they went to Crockett first. They went to Jimmy and tried to sell him Georgia Championship Wrestling, at which Jimmy turned down.
Now, that is in the spring of 1984.
Now, if you think that if you, if you. One would have the idea that Jimmy Crockett was thinking about national expansion, wouldn't he have wanted that?
He would have wanted TBS, right? Because it was a year later in 1985, he did get it from Vince. But if he would have been thinking about a strategic plan for national expansion in 84, he would have bought it from Jack and Jerry because they probably would have given him a little bit of a deal, being NWA loyalists, maybe a little bit better deal than Vince had to pay for it. But I would, I would think that Jimmy would have bought. Would have bet on that.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Deal.
Yeah, you would think so.
But, but anyhow, getting back to 1985, I mean, as far as the WWF goes, I mean, WrestleMania was, was a true success.
And one of the things that came out of that was it was such a big deal at the time that about, I think it was about two, three weeks after the event, Hulk Hogan becomes the first wrestler since Danny Hodge to be on the covers Sports Illustrated. And there hasn't been anybody since either. But that guy was, that was actually a big deal because for us fans there were articles within that issue, Sports Illustrated, that kind of peeled back the curtain a little bit and talked about the behind the scenes of wrestling and how it's run. And it did acknowledge that there were other promoters who were not particularly happy with Vince and what they were doing in the Northeast and they were expanding into what beforehand were these sacred territories, as we like to call them. And so that was interesting. And it did even mention the, the, the birth of Pro Wrestling usa, which was a short lived challenger to the wwf. And it did acknowledge even Bob Backlin who worked for Pro Wrestling USA briefly. And he was a really, essentially a disgruntled former WWF employee. So, so those, those were very interesting key points of 1985 as.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: Well. You know, as 1985 kicks off, we were talking about George Scott and guys that he had had a lot of success with before the wwf.
One of those guys is Greg Valentine, right? And Greg Valentine and Tito Santana are.
I mean that's a big program in the WWF right at the beginning of 85.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Right?
Absolutely. That's a program that became a big, big feud. Santana had, you know, won the title in 84 from Morocco, I think in January or February in Boston. And that feud became one of the longer ongoing feuds of 84.
And then you're going into 85 and Valentine is there in the mix. And George Scott was just such a great guy with the tag teams. I mean, the WWF had never really had a tag team division per se, but he did a great job of assembling these teams. I mean, the Hart foundation was kind of like his creation. Putting Brett and Jim together that hadn't really, I mean they had wrestled together in the past, but the idea of going with them, calling them the Hart foundation with Jimmy Hart and then them feuding with the British Bulldogs was one of the kind of undercard feuds that they had. And in 85 you had Jim Brunzell arrive and they paired him with be, Brian Blair. You already had Sheik and Volkov, you know, they would add more teams. They had Wyndham and Rotunda.
You know, in the end of 84, we had the Briscoes there. You know, it's just, I was.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: Just going to say, you know, a big program we missed out on. Right.
We missed out on. We missed out on Jack and Jerry and Wyndham and Rotundo, which is a program George Scott wanted to do with the.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Briscoes.
That would have been really interesting to see, to see Jack and Jerry. I mean, they played those heel roles brilliantly in the mid Atlantic and to see them do that on the east coast would have been really something.
And we did have a really good team in Adonis and Murdoch in 84. That needs to be mentioned.
[00:25:40] Speaker C: Too.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Absolutely.
But, but, but, yeah, I, I mean, sadly, you know, Jack Briscoe hit that point where he realized he just, he was, he could, he didn't feel comfortable delivering the type of performance he was delivering. I mean, he was a very proud athlete and a very high level athlete. He didn't want to just kind of go out there and give 50% when he was used to giving 100%. And so the idea of him hanging with him and Jerry hanging with Rotunda and Wyndham, on paper it sounds great, but yeah, I don't think they really wanted to do that.
[00:26:22] Speaker C: Unfortunately.
Yeah, I think George just wanted a repeat of the Briscoes and Youngblood and Steamboat program, which is probably what I think about the most, about what that might have could have been.
But you know, I mean, Jerry was such a good heel in his interviews, which later came out in the later WWF years with Pat Patterson when they were the Stooges or whatever. I mean, Jerry just, just a great. And, and Jack, the consummate all American athlete, just standing there with his arms folded, smiling to let Jerry do the promo, you know, that was, that was Heelish in itself.
But yeah, I mean, you got to respect Jack for having that kind of personal integrity to not want to be anything less than his.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Best.
You know, I, I think, I think, you know, one thing that has come out recently as far as all the behind the scenes stuff in wrestling, I mean, until recently, and you've been one of the key people bringing this information to the forefront.
People have never really given Jerry Briscoe credit for what he did behind the scenes. Playing a role with those building managers in the south, helping this Northeast guy bring his Northeast promotion to the South. I think with Jerry Briscoe, without Jerry Briscoe, they probably couldn't have done.
[00:27:51] Speaker C: It.
Yeah. I think Jerry combined with Jim Barnett, with the television was just an amazing coup by Vince as far as putting his executive level team together.
And he was such a good, such a good CEO in that regard of having the very best people possible for the roles that he had available and positioning them to do what he had the vision for and then allowing them to do that job. I mean, that was an amazing thing. And that's, that's really what was the key to his success in the national expansion, I think, was his.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Team.
Yes. Yeah, I agree with that.
And I would say that the next big thing that happened after WrestleMania and after the Sports Illustrated issue was they got on NBC, I think it was April or May, probably May of 85, for the very first Saturday night's main event that they taped at the Nassau County Coliseum.
And you know, it was the first time that wrestling had been on network TV since, I guess, the 50s, I believe.
And you know, they get, they great, got a great rating with Hulk Hogan and the crew and, and they tried to bring, I guess, Dick Ebersol from NBC.
He had seen the TNT show, which was, you know, popular show on the USA Network, where they combined, you know, wrestling and skits and a talk show type element. And they took some of that same kind of humor from the TNT show to deliver that on Saturday's main event. And NBC soon found out that the wrestling got a better rating than Saturday Night Live did for the most part. So they were very happy to have this cheap program on that they could make a huge revenue off.
[00:29:42] Speaker C: Of.
Well, there's Vince doing that again.
Right. I mean, he wants to be on network television. Who's the best sports oriented television guy in the business at the time? Dick Ebersole. And so he brings him in as part of this, this component of his overall plan, which is to be on NBC and to have Dick Ebersol overseeing the production of that was just, I mean, it's just.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Brilliant.
Right, right. So, so I, I think that that really helped them gain a lot of mileage. I mean, as we would get into fall of 85, they all of a sudden they had a cartoon show, Hulk Hogan's Rock and Wrestling on CBS Saturday mornings. So they were really locking into that key demographic of the younger kids and they really wanted to start marketing all the products toward the kids, if they haven't already.
You know, they got the LJN dolls going with Hogan and all the characters.
Tons of figures. The wrestlers were getting huge checks from the, those first releases of the dolls. They're making like 90 grand in residuals from the check from the Dolls.
So it was just a really good time for the promotion. And I. I felt that the shows, even though they weren't heavy on wrestling, they were good, kind of like fast food. They were just really, you know, high energy.
They definitely took a lot from mtv. They put a lot of music into the shows. They had lots of transitions, lots of, you know, lighting and special effects and things. And they. They definitely made a show for the family to enjoy together. It was definitely one of the reasons why the show was such a big.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: Hit.
I think.
I think it was February when they got on the. They did the MTV war to settle the score was it wasn't that in February of.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: 85.
Yeah, I think. I think you're right that that was like the last major event that led up to the WrestleMania. And yeah, and they, you know, they had built up the idea of, you know, Mr. T and Hogan against Piper and Orndorff, and. And they did lots of cool things that lead up to that, certainly not the least of which was having Hogan and T host Saturday Night Live the night before WrestleMania. So if you had been a prison in some prison, you just got released. I mean, you turn on Saturday Night Live there, there they are hyping it. They were hyping it every which way. And it really, I mean, if you had any interest whatsoever in wrestling, it was something you were kind of intrigued and wanted to buy it and check it.
[00:32:36] Speaker C: Out. So I think where I was, what I was thinking there, and I wanted to get your thoughts about it, is that. And of course, I'm not privy to the goings on in the internal part of the wwf, but just as an observer at the time and also looking back on it now, it seems like Vince, in his role, he's leaving the wrestling creative, leaving a lot of that to George Scott. But. But he's doing the cultural pieces of this. Like, he's the one who's thinking about getting in with mtv, he's the one getting in with NBC. And Saturday night's main event and the celebrity component of it seems like that's more what Vince is more interested in being involved in, rather than booking the Greg Valentine, Tito Santana feud, you know what I.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Mean? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I've been a fan of this, watching Wrestling WWF since 1976. And honestly, I think that this period was probably the most exciting period period, because you had George Scott doing the booking and juggling all the plates and keeping everything interesting. And it was never boring when he was booking. I mean, you had, you know, Morocco against Steamboat, you had Terry Funk against jyd.
And they would always tweak things and, you know, put a new spin on the angle, just keep it going and make it more interesting. And I mean, everybody likes to talk about Pat Paris and like, he's the greatest booker of all time. But I honestly think that George Scott, when he was there for that, that period, he was there for two to three years.
He was really creative. He had great talent. He knew what to do with the talent. He used them to their very best.
And I think he's incredibly underrated as far as what he was able to pull.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: Off.
I don't know.
I don't know how much of it is 100. Well, nothing in wrestling is 100% true. But. But the idea of selling the TBS contract to Crockett for a million dollars in order to finance WrestleMania, which there's advocates of that on each side, there's some people who say, absolutely, Vince needed that money. He had everything else mortgaged and he needed the money to do WrestleMania other.
No, he was in great financial shape. He needed the cash flow. But it wasn't that. He was just desperate for the money, you know what I mean? But selling TBS to Crockett at this around March of 85, giving your competition that strategic piece, is very interesting to me about why he'd do.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: That.
Well, well, I think another thing that needs to be said, I believe Vince also got like a million dollars from Inoki prior to WrestleMania, of monies that they owed New Japan, owed WWF for probably for all the talent we had sent over there, New York has sent over there. And that money really helped fund these things.
And before you know it, I know like in May of 85, June of 85, if you had to bought the Kaiser magazines, even the Kaiser magazines, which hated McMahon's wrestling, they had ads for WrestleMania here. You can order WrestleMania on VHS or beta. You know, it's like, like 59, you can buy the tape. And that was another source of revenue that they had never had before. And before you know it, they're releasing like the Best of Hulkamania, the Best of the wwf, Volume one. And they even had Bruno matches on there. And the WWF had kept a catalog of old matches, which the other promotions sadly didn't. I mean, there were some exceptions that did, but most of them didn't. Most of them taped over the tapes or the.
[00:36:49] Speaker C: Films. Right.
And Hogan had just been in Japan at the beginning of 85, also in New Japan, wrestling, the Other thing that's involved in that whole TBS thing was Ted Turner's pressure on Vince because he wanted a studio show and he wanted an old southern studio show like the old days. And Vince didn't want to do that. He didn't want to know, number one, logistically, he didn't want to fly his guys to Atlanta every Saturday morning to do the television show. And second of all, it didn't fit the studio show and TBS did not fit in his creative vision of what he wanted to present to the fans. He wanted to present an arena show on television so fans would get the idea of what it would be like to buy a ticket and come to a show which he didn't think studio wrestling was conducive to that which I get that knowing now how it all played out and where he was going. What do you.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Think?
Well, I think it's very interesting to look back and I didn't know this until recent years, but there are, there are a number of episodes where they kind of finally caved in and they did it turn his way. They did do some WWF episodes in the studios, which would eventually be the more well known Studios for the 605 show for WCW or I should say Jim Crockett Promotions.
And I think they had Monsoon there. They had a lot of, a lot of the. Like how lesser known wrestlers like the David Sammartinos or Tiger Chung Lee or you know, wrestlers who maybe weren't necessarily getting the biggest push, they came down to Georgia and they were wrestling in these matches. And it's one of those kind of puzzling decisions that kind of like makes you think, I mean, Vince had this asset of being on the Superstation.
I mean obviously he enjoyed being on the USA Network and he had his hands in these other areas and this show was syndicated all over the world. But why he kind of almost took TBS for granted kind of blows my mind because he could have, he could have used it more effectively and helped draw in more fans using that tool. I don't know why he acted like it was, you know, not worthy of him using.
[00:39:19] Speaker C: It. I think part of it, and this, this is only from my conversations with Jerry Briscoe over the years about meetings with Vince and strategic discussions and things like that. Vince was very, even though a lot of his success was built on some elements of Southern wrestling, he didn't want to have anything to do with it. And he, Jerry said we would hear it every meeting. We're not going to do it the way you guys have done it down South. We're not going to do it the way you guys have done it down South. And I just think maybe after he got it, maybe, and with Turner's pressure and constant wanting something like it was before, I think he just wanted out of that. Like, I just think he thought TBS meant Southern Wrestling and that he wasn't going to. He had other bigger fish to fry than to try to convince people that TBS was now the new home of the new and improved wwf. I don't know. That's just. Just a.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Thought.
No, that makes perfect sense.
And you have to look at it this way, too. I mean, even if the only thing that came out of the Black Saturday was the fact that Jim Barnett became a WWF employee and Jerry Briscoe became a WWF employee, I mean, that alone was worth it because they've added so much value over the years to the promotion. I mean, like you said, I mean, could Vince have pulled off the national expansion without Jim Barnett by his side and without Jerry Briscoe by his side? I don't know if he could have done.
[00:41:03] Speaker C: It. It had been a lot harder and probably would have took.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Longer.
[00:41:07] Speaker C: Right. But one other thing, and it sparked something in my head when you mentioned his name and you and I have talked about him so much recently and about our 70s episodes. But didn't Bruno come back this.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Year?
Yeah, yeah, Bruno. Bruno came back in 84.
I think it was like, September.
He came back to be an announcer and to have his son get a push, but.
But it was always kind of understood, I guess, that he would.
Vince was going to, like, talk him into wrestling because they knew he could still draw people at the gate.
He didn't want to do it, but he did come back and he wrestled a number of times in 85, mainly, I think. I think every show was on the East Coast. I mean, he did in 87. I know he went to, you know, some dates that were like, in Albuquerque and worked the Paul Boss show and stuff like that, but he. He worked mainly the east coast and was drawing big. It was like. It was as if Bruno had never retired. He was popping houses all over again. And that created friction between Bruno and David and Bruno and Vince, and we know where all that ended up.
But it's very interesting to see Bruno come back and work in this new era where wrestling had really changed so much since the time he had.
[00:42:30] Speaker C: Left. I'd started trading tapes in 83, 82, 83, somewhere around in there.
And I think I became an Observer Subscriber in 85 because I was just so amazed.
And I just got Dave's new publication with all of his 85 stuff in.
[00:42:53] Speaker B: It.
I gotta get that. I gotta get.
[00:42:55] Speaker C: It. I went through that a little bit as part of my Christmas gift to myself was I just sat down and perused that for a while and it just brought back so many memories.
One of the things I was amazed at at the time in 1985, and I'm still a little amazed is all of the former National Wrestling alliance offices that had closed in 1980 and 1981 on the west coast and how well Vince did there when they first started running out there. I mean, they're drawing 11, 12,000 in Oakland and San Francisco and in Los Angeles and San Diego and all of these markets that probably hadn't been run much in the last previous four years.
And they weren't drawing anything. When those offices closed down, when NWA Hollywood closed and when Roy Scheier finally went out of business, I mean, they weren't drawing flies. But Vince is out there on the west coast with this WWF product and they're drawing, you know, five digit houses. I was just surprised about that. How well they did pretty.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Quickly.
No, you make an excellent point and you're absolutely correct. I mean, they went to Oakland and Fresno and in Los Angeles and Sacramento and they were just drawing these huge gates and, and like you said, for the most part it had been a wrestling barren area. I mean, the AWA had been out there on the West Coast a little bit, but they were drawing like flies. I think, like they had a show, I think of the Cow palace or like a thousand fans. I mean, it just, just whatever Vince had, they liked it. I mean, having Hogan at the top of the card, I guess was a big deal. I mean, a lot of people like to always say, well, and I heard somebody say it over the weekend, they said like, well, without Rocky 3, Hulk Hogan would be a nobody. And, and maybe there's some truth to that. I mean, people saw him in the movie and he was impressive looking and I'm sure it got some people off their sofas to go and buy wrestling tickets. But it was more, more than just that. I mean, he did deliver a product that they liked and you know, it was, it was not unlike the Marvel universe. You know, he was, he was your, you know, Iron man or Spider man or whoever and all the other characters, the JYDS or Tito Santanas. It was just like your Merry Men of X Men or Avengers or whatever, what have you. The people love to go and buy the.
[00:45:33] Speaker C: Tickets. I'm pretty sure that if Vern Gagne would not have had the mindset that he had and he would have been more open minded.
I'm pretty sure Hulk Hogan would have been a star in the AWA without Rocky.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: 3.
No, I, I agree and he did. I mean, Hulk definitely benefited from going there and, and getting some seasoning and they showed him some things there. But I, I thought it was very interesting and very, very humorous. I saw a shoot interview with Jim Bronzel recently and he said that and he was very close with the Gas because of course he was team with Greg all those years. But Jim Brunzel said that Vern really resented Hogan because he could tell, Vern could tell that the popularity of Hogan was so much vaster than the popularity that Verne had all those years. I mean, there were women, children, families screaming for the Hulk. And you know, here's this huge, like, you know, super heavyweight guy with long blonde hair, a bass player, not, not a wrestler with, you know, coming from Iowa or anything like that. And apparently Vernon was this really, it was a blow to his ego that this, you know, former bass player from Tampa was this, you know, wrestling's next big thing and just broke his ego.
[00:47:06] Speaker C: Down. Yeah, it's just he couldn't make the mind shift, adjust and really. And I've gotten a little heat over it over the years, but I still stand by it and I will for as long as I have a breath.
Vince McMahon did not kill the territories.
What killed the territories was an attitude like Verns.
And all the promoters had that similar type attitude in different ways.
Vern's was about old school amateur wrestling and you needed to be either a strong technical worker or a legit amateur. And Hogan wasn't either.
And that just didn't fit in with his vision of what wrestling should be. Unfortunately, the tastes of the people who were buying tickets was changing.
Vern was still drawing big houses. I mean, in 1985, the AWA still drew a lot of big fans in their home Minneapolis based area. Like now in California, like you said, they were starting to fall. The further you got away from Minneapolis, the more difficult it was. But still in Minneapolis, I mean, they were still drawing in Minneapolis and St. Paul and in some of the regular towns.
But the tastes of America, the American wrestling fan was going more toward what Vince was. Vince was creating something that was going to be part of the culture of America.
It was something that was transcending the wrestling.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: Business.
[00:48:46] Speaker C: Right. And wrestling promoters of the territories could not even, they had always been used to being, how should I say, a niche.
I mean, we came from the carnivals.
We've always been this side attraction show.
And Vance is now making it as big as a Hollywood movie or something. Like, in the same breath you'd mention a big movie in 1985, you'd also talk about the WWF.
And the WWF and the word wrestling were starting to become.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: Synonymous.
[00:49:25] Speaker C: Right.
And that's how the business was changing. And the territory guys, they. They couldn't get there in their. In their mindset. Couple other things I want to mention to you, and I want to get your.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: Thoughts. Sure.
[00:49:39] Speaker C: Two. Two. Sure, two guys. There might be more. If there are, you. You bring them up. But two guys I specifically want to ask you about one of them, of course, the. Well, both of them near and dear to my heart. The first one is Terry Funk.
Terry Funk comes in in 1985. Right, right. Didn't he?
Because. Because he had been in Crockett for a short amount of time, and then I think he did a movie or something, and then he came to the wwf.
What did you think about Terry Funk showing up in the.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Wwf?
I had been, you know, buying the magazine since that first year. I became a fan, 1976, which was his world championship.
[00:50:22] Speaker C: Year.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: Right. So, I mean, I was. I was a huge fan of him from the magazines. I had never really seen him the time he came there in 85.
And. And what was really cool about it was, you know, a lot of the people forget this, that the complaint about Vince or the wwf.
They gave him a really great introductory thing. They had these promos of him coming in, and they even billed him as a former world's champion, which was, you know, unusual that they would kind of acknowledge somebody's past history. But they said the former world champion, Terry Funk is going to be coming to the World Wrestling Federation. And he shot these promos and he's saying, like, you know, I'm coming for you, Hulk Hogan. I'm coming for you, Jyden. And to me, I was like. I was like in hog heaven. It's like this guy who I've been dreaming my whole life about seeing is coming, and he's got this great legendary track record. He's going to be coming in and I mean, from the very first moment he arrives, he does, you know, he gets introduced by Mel Phillips, the infamous Mel Phillips, right?
His cowboy hat on his head, and Terry, you know, slaps him to the ground and, you know, and basically, you know, beats him up in the ring. Then he has one of the greatest squash matches with Aldo Marino. I mean, Terry Funk was over immediately from the moment he arrived. Yeah, I mean, even if the fans didn't know about his background or his history, he was immediately over with. You know, this is a guy with the branding iron.
He had Jimmy Harden as his manager, but he just, he just had that charisma that I think made people want to see him. And I, I was, I was heartbroken when he left. I mean, he was only there until, I think he lasted right up to about the end of WrestleMania 2 and maybe one other show after that and he was gone. But you know, Dory eventually came in too, about behind him and they, and they teamed up briefly and you know, a lot of the people always complain, the so called smart fans. Oh, Vince called him Hoss. Why didn't he do that? Well, he was Hoss in college or high school, they called him Haas. So I mean, what the, what the, you.
[00:52:34] Speaker C: Know. Yeah, that was his nickname. I, I freely admit I look at things much differently now than I did 40 years ago.
Sure, 40 years ago I was heartbroken. I'm like, terry, Terry, you've betrayed us. You're going to the ww. Oh my God, Terry, why are you, what are you.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: Doing?
And, but to that, but to that point I will say what, what broke my heart was in retrospect, he had been on one of those Pro Wrestling USA shows and like, and they did have in a match, I think him and Bachwinkle and Larry's Abisko were in a tag match. And I think he even was like a color man a little bit on one of those shows. But I'm thinking to myself, you're doing this TV taping in Memphis, you've got like 60 wrestlers in the back and you got Terry Funk and you're not using Terry Funk. I mean, you know, again, whoever was running that Pro Wrestling usa, they need their head examined because you get Terry Funk and you're not putting him, he should have been the first person that he should have put out in front of the camera to attract fans because he, he's, he always found a way to get over, he knows how to do.
[00:53:42] Speaker C: That. Well, it's a, it's the same thing that happens, Steve. Anytime you get three and four people who are trying to run something, you know, it doesn't work. And then there's just confusion.
Booking committees don't work. You, you have to have, somebody has to have the final say and someone has to give the direction. Hey, all you three or four guys get on the same page here, we're going this way. And, well, the, the other one I wanted to mention to you and I went to Lexington, Kentucky that night in June because the word was out that Randy was leaving and Randy Savage, and he was, you know, he's having a loser leaves town match with Lawlor. And of course, for those of us who kind of had figured some things out and had correspondence communication as it was back then, but they were doing those matches around the horn, you know, so, you know, Randy's having to lose her leave town match with Lawler on a Thursday night in Lexington, Kentucky, and I, I got to go to it because I had. The word was already out that Randy was going to the wwf. So I really wanted to go see Randy one more time before he went over to the dark.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: Side.
[00:54:57] Speaker C: Right.
But that, you know, again back then today, it was wonderful and I'm so happy for him. It did a great, it was great for him. It was great for his family. It was great for Elizabeth, who we had seen for four years, as I first saw her, selling popcorn at a show and working the gimmick table. Sweet little innocent Liz Hewlett, you know, and then what happened to her and her career with him going to the wwf, in retrospect, was wonderful for everybody. But what, what, what was that your first chance of seeing Randy when he came to the.
[00:55:35] Speaker B: Wwf?
It was. And, and I, I really hadn't been buying the wrestling magazines in the early 80s. I, I, I wasn't nearly as into wrestling as I had been in the 70s. But so this part, you know, in the mid-80s, I'm starting to buy the magazines again, starting to get really into it again.
And, and, but I had no idea who was Randy Savage. So that first time he appeared in the wwf, you know, I see him with the unique sunglasses and the long flowing capes, and then they're doing this angle.
The managers are all vying for his attention. Of course, he ends up going with Elizabeth. But his ability and his package, just the overall package of him as an interview. And of course, he borrowed from Ferpo. He brought from different people. But just, I mean, to me, I mean, I, I know people love to say Rick Flair was the greatest of all time.
Randy Savage, I think to me, I, I like better than Ric Flair. I just like his package. I like his intensity. I, I never really saw Ric Flair as this intense guy that, that you were afraid of. Randy Savage had that level of intensity that you didn't know what he was going to do. He could snap it and he minute and he could attack anybody and no one was safe. And his ability, his, his, his athletic ability to me was second to.
[00:57:05] Speaker C: None. You know, and Savage and Steamboat, I mean, what a, what a great combination. And people, you know, a lot of times you'll hear like who, who's one of the very few wrestlers that should never work heel and Ricky Steamboat's name always comes up. Right?
Well, to your point, Randy Savage should never work.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: Babyface. I.
[00:57:28] Speaker C: Agree. I mean, I just don't think he would be. And I don't really care for flares of Babyface.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Either.
[00:57:35] Speaker C: Right. Even though people cheered him as a cool heel. I don't just don't, can't see him. And the main thing is baby faces need offense and neither Flair nor Savage had great offense. They were both tremendous bumpers though, and they would let the baby face dominate them and have to then cheat or do something sneaky or, you know, just taking these big bumps to get the baby face over. They, they were both great. I, I, I love that you love Randy Savage more than Ric.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: Flair. I think that's, I do. I mean he's just so unique.
I mean everything about him is unique. It's not like, I mean, I know I said he borrowed from Furoti some, some of his interview elements, but just, and I know he came from baseball, I'm a huge baseball guy. But you know, his athleticism is just so impressive. I mean, I mean, you know Steamboat the same way. I mean Steamboat, the things he could do in the ring are second to none. And, and Savage is right there with him. I mean it would be hard to say who was better than the.
[00:58:39] Speaker C: Other. Yeah, I'd rather see Ric flair in a 60 minute draw.
I've, I've seen some Randy Savage 60 minute draws and I'd rather see Randy in a good 30 to 40 intense match, you know, rather than a long drawn out thing where there's really not much of a conclusion.
But, but I love that. I mean, I don't like, I like people that have differing opinions and perspectives that have some reasons why rather than just falling into same old royal. Ric Flair is the greatest of all time. And maybe he is, but, but I like a differing opinion. A contrarian view from time to.
[00:59:23] Speaker B: Time.
Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean when you say greatest of all time, I mean you, you really, you have to go back and think about, well, there's Luthes, I mean Lutheran, his era was the greatest. I mean I, I'm a Bruno fan. To me, Bruno was always going to be the greatest. But as far as the 80s go, and like all these great athletic younger wrestlers, I would say that Randy Savage was the premier wrestler out of that.
[00:59:48] Speaker C: Group. It's hard to find somebody that checks all the boxes. You know, a couple other things I'll just mention here before we wrap up, but in thinking about this year of 1985 and, and I've talked a lot about how the paradigm was changing and how wrestling always changes. You know, 1925, 1935, 1945, every, every 10 year period on the fives. It seems like the paradigm shifts in 1985 was a real big shift as we really start head into the disintegration of the territory system and Vince is breaking out of that. And when you think about. We mentioned this briefly earlier with a couple of things. What did we say? We said it was the MTV component, We said it was the WrestleMania component. We said NBC and Saturday night's main event. Well, not, not only that, but Hulk Hogan's rock and wrestling cartoon was. And the wrestling album came out with the album with all the WWF superstars and all that. And just so many things he was, Vince was doing and his team were doing to blend into the fabric of American culture. I mean, it was, when you look back on it now, I mean, it was just a tremendous, tremendous metamorphosis. How would you say it was metamorphosizing? You know, it was changing the whole thing, the whole, I say paradigm a lot, but the whole structure of how the business was conducted was changing.
Think about all those things. He did it in the WWF, did in 1985. Just, just.
[01:01:35] Speaker B: Amazing.
It is. And, and I remember this is going back about four or five years. I remember there was talk different writers were going to write a oral history of the wwe.
And, and in my mind, from what I was hearing, that oral history was probably going to begin in 1997 or 1998 because they wanted to cover the Attitude era, because that's at the time that's what they felt would sell books and that would be the hot thing. We'll cover the Attitude era. We'll cover John Cena's era. We'll cover up till today.
And I definitely got the vibe from the people that were talking about the book was that like 1985 might as well have been the Stone Age. It might have well been the prehistoric Age. But to me, I've been, I've lived through it all like you've lived through it all.
This period is the most exciting like 84 was just off the chain. I mean, you had the Freebirds there one week, Buzz Sawyer there one week. You had people coming and going. But in 85 you're starting to see all the benefit of all the change and all the George Scotts and the Jim Barnett's and all the influences and all this stuff is emerging, all the pay per views and the revenue and John McCabe and I are going to start to review 86 now. And they're still at a very, very high period. And they would remain there until 87. To me, it starts to fall off in 88, 89. I think they rebounded a bit with Dusty, with Boss man and the rockers and Tully and Aaron. But, but this is a, I can't think of a more interesting period of wrestling to talk.
[01:03:22] Speaker C: About. I mean, and just because we're talking about how great the WWF was doing does not mean that others were not doing well in 85 as well. I mean, Crockett had a tremendous 1985.
It is almost, I guess I'd have to say 86 was my favorite Crockett year. But 85 was a really, really close second. I mean I, when they got on TBS and I could start watching them every week and some of the things they did and I was never so excited as I was for Starrcade 85. I mean I, I was just, I mean when they broke Dusty's ankle in the Omni and, and all of that, I mean, I just thought it was fantastic. And I'm going to be talking with Jamie Ward about that in our Jim Crockett recap of 85. But I mean, to me, in 1984, Vince was like sampling the stew.
I kind of see him in the kitchen and he's mixing in a few ingredients. Like you said, the free burger. Well, we try the free. That doesn't really work. You know, we'll try this, we'll try that. And then 1985, he just turned up the burners and said, let's cook this thing. You know what I.
[01:04:27] Speaker B: Mean? Right, right. No, yeah, that's a very good analogy. And it's, and you're right about the other promotions. I mean, Dusty, they needed Dusty and Jim Crockett promotions. He, he, he, he was their Vince in a way. I mean he was the creativity, he was the George Scott. He was the one creating all the angles and starting to build the, you know, he was the guy who thought of the Great American Bash, who thought of these things and, and the AWA was still thriving. I mean, they had lost Hogan, they lost Mean Gene, but they, they had the Fabulous Ones and they had the Road Warriors. They had people like.
[01:05:04] Speaker C: That. And World Class had a great 1985. I mean, they. Absolutely.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. And Bill Watts was thriving in his area. He was doing really well. We didn't know that there was going to be all the issues with the oil issues out there and the economy issues, but that's what eventually hurt his.
[01:05:25] Speaker C: Promotion. And then we're going to have some sad stories, too.
Florida is going to be a sad story.
Portland is going to be a sad story. But you know, the, the big four or so are still doing really well in 85. So I look forward to doing those recaps with our relevant hosts that we're going to an analyst that we're going to have here talking about it. And Steve, thank you for this hour of your time and coming by to talk about the WWF in 1985 to kick off our brand new year of podcasts here at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. I, I value your opinion highly and very few people I'd rather talk wrestling with.
[01:06:07] Speaker B: So.
Well, thank you, Tony. I feel the same way about you and I couldn't think of a better topic to talk about. I mean, this is definitely a happy time to be a fan in 85, and it's always fun to look back on it because it takes you back to your youth when you didn't have to worry about a mortgage and the other.
[01:06:24] Speaker C: Issues.
And you're going to be covering 86 on your show with John McAdam, and you and I are going to be doing 76 here in the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel, which is going to be a fantastic year also to talk about.
[01:06:38] Speaker B: Too. So I'm really excited about two of my favorite years, especially 76 with Bruno and one of his most exciting years. So there's a lot to talk.
[01:06:47] Speaker C: About. Thank you.
[01:06:48] Speaker B: Steve.
Thank you.
[01:06:50] Speaker C: Tony. Well, I hope you enjoy that look back in 1985 to the WWF and that's what we're doing here in the month of January. And the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel is we're going back to 1985 to review the existing territories. What were they doing? What were the matches? What were the decisions that they were making that are going to influence the health and welfare of their business for the next four to five years that are very, very critical in the territory era. So Steve Giannarelli and I covered the WWF today and I hope that was a nice trip back in time. And a nice recap for you next week. Howard Baum is going to be here and we're going to review championship wrestling from Florida in 1985. And we have a real insider from the Florida promotion here, Bruce Owens. And Bruce is going to be here with Howard. And we're going to have a conversation at the Richards Ranch that you are not going to want to miss.
Of course, the big event in 1985 was right at the very beginning, first of the year, Eddie Graham committed suicide.
And one of the major players and political power brokers of the National Wrestling alliance is no longer with us. And he is no longer the captain of the ship that is championship wrestling from Florida. What were the employees thinking? What was the reaction of the wrestlers? What was the reaction of other people around that Bruce had access to? How did Bruce find out?
What did it do to Bruce?
These are going to be some fantastic conversations, only about Eddie Graham, but we're going to talk about more than that. We're going to talk about Dutch Mantel and Michael Hayes, who came in to book the first part of the year. We're going to Talk about Wahoo McDaniel who picked up the book and was the booker through the end. Championship wrestling from Florida was still drawing some amazing crowds in 1985. We have the introduction of the rookie lex Luger in 1985. Lot of cool stuff that happened in Florida in 1985. And you're going to hear all about it on our show next week here at the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Wrestling History Show. Okay, let me tell you about a couple of things I'm doing. We are wrapping up the Roy Welch and Family Legacy series.
We just did episode eight and it's going to come out this week, probably the day after you hear this show. Usually we come out on Wednesday and the Briscoe and Bradshaw show comes out on Thursday.
And so you will get episode eight this week where Jerry Jarrett and Nick goes split up and basically split the company into a wrestling war. Ron Fuller has a wrestling war of his own in Knoxville, Tennessee, and he expands the Gulf coast part of the territory, which was the territory that his dad founded 20 years before.
We're going to have all that on the stories with Briscoe and Bradshaw. Podcast Episode 8 of the Roy Welch Family Legacy, another podcast I'm going to be appearing on. I will be back on the WFIA podcast next week on the 15th.
I think that's Thursday, January 15th. Wow, it's already January 15th. Time is flying, but I will be there. WFIA podcast and our special guest is going to be Vladimir Volkov. And you don't want to miss that. Chris will be there and all the regular cast of characters on the WFIA podcast next Thursday, January 15th.
Also, I am releasing all of my Evolution of Wrestling series with the recaps. We still got 1965 to get to you. We still got 1975 to get to you and 1985 to get to you. And those are on the way and coming out. I had to take a brief break this past weekend because the holidays have just been crazy. So I decided to take a couple days off. I had a trip to St. Louis to make and so I did all that and I have been a little lax on my writing, but that is starting up again today and tomorrow you'll start to see the email well, the Daily Chronicle has quit.
The Daily Chronicle has not missed an issue since last April in all of its existence. We have never failed to get an issue of the Chronicle out and it is coming out again every single day.
But I want to get you the special Evolution of Wrestling recaps. They're coming out before the week's end, and I hope you enjoyed the New Year's Eve and New Year's Day shows we did last week. We did the top 500 wrestlers.
My opinion, my list top 500 or top 100? Top 100? Gosh, we didn't do 500100 wrestlers of 1975.
And so I've got so much great feedback from a lot of you. So I know you enjoyed it and I appreciate you listening and appreciate you supporting us. Come on over to the Facebook group. We have the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Facebook group that's going strong. We have a lot of incredible members there. We have a lot of great historians that you probably have never heard of that are doing great job contributing to that group.
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A lot of that stuff costs money because it's rare and people are selling it and they're cashing out and I need funds to buy it. And I use the funds that you give me as a premium investor to invest in that research so you can have more pro wrestling history via the Time tunnel. It's only $5 a month. It's only $50 for the whole year. If you want to save 10 bucks, just pay 50 bucks all at one time and you're a premium investor for the year and you get that evolution of wrestling and some other really cool things we're going to do this year that I can't quite tell you about yet, but I will be making those announcements soon. We New Year's Day, right before New Year's Day, right before midnight, we crossed over 400 believers and subscribers to the Pro Wrestling Time tunnel. And about 10% of those are premium investors that pay the $5 a month or the $50 a year. And everywhere I look and everybody I talk to, 10% is a great number.
We've got an incredible 30% open rate on all the newsletters we send out every day on the Daily Chronicle. And everybody tells me that's fantastic.
Which has more to do with you than me. The fact that you like what we're doing, the fact that you like and support what we do, and the wrestling history that we're putting out. And we got a lot more wrestling history to put out and to give to you through a lot of different things that we're going to be doing this year that I can't wait to get into. You can follow me on X. Tony Richards 4 used to be Twitter, but now it's X. We have a lot of great conversations there. I put out a lot of great wrestling history material and it all comes to you if you subscribe by following me on X or you come over to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. And don't forget our YouTube channel has the video versions of all of our podcasts right there on YouTube and we've got great feedback. The top 100 countdown got tremendous, tremendous support on our YouTube channel. It's the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel YouTube channel. Come over, hit the subscribe and the like button and give me some thumbs up.
And I would be highly appreciative and deeply grateful. That's our show here this week on the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Wrestling History Show. And don't Forget next week, 1985 Championship Wrestling from Florida. It's going to be a great show. You don't want to miss it. I promise you'll thank me for reminding you to tune in next week. Hey, if you want to be. If you want to.
Hey, if you want to be with us, I want you to be with us. Hey, if you want better neighbors, be a better neighbor. All right, you can disagree. Just don't be disagreeable.
We will see you here live from the Richards Ranch next week, Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel. I'm your host, Tony Richards. Love you. Mean it. So long, everybody from the Bluegrass.
[01:16:21] Speaker A: State.
Thanks for tuning in to the Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel podcast. Tune in for another great episode next week, interviewing wrestlers, referees, and media personalities that have made the sport of professional wrestling great. We'll release a new episode soon. Don't you dare miss.
