Two scenarios for you:
1. On the way to meet Vince McMahon for the first time ever, Hogan gets run over by a cement mixer.
2. On the way to meet Hulk Hogan for the first time ever, Vince gets run over by a cement mixer.
How does each scenario affect the survivor's career and the wrestling industry as a whole?
. He would no-sell the mixer and pop up, deliver three punches to the truck, and drop the big leg on it to win his title back, brother! Or rather, Vince would try out a series of guys on top like JYD, Snuka, Kerry Von Erich and probably eventually buy Lex Luger from Crockett and run with him on top. Business would probably be fine but not explode on MTV or create national headlines with Wrestlemania and such.
2. Vince would flip the double bird to St. Peter on the way to the afterlife, and the wrestling business as we know it would be dead by 1988 when Crockett spent himself out of business and there was no national template for WCW to follow. Probably it would just be a bunch of indy promotions constantly searching for money marks and the carrot of a national TV deal. Vince was really FAR more important to the business as a whole than Hogan was.
The Cement Mixer would get a run with the TNA title.
ReplyDeleteBUT WHO WAS DRIVING THE CEMENT MIXER
ReplyDeleteIf Vince gets run over before meeting Hogan -- let's say in '83 or '84 -- wouldn't that open the door for World Class and the UWF/Mid-South to get a shot on, say, USA or maybe even TBS? For being overreliant on the Von Erichs, WCCW's presentation was top-notch when the territory was hot.
ReplyDeleteYes but Fritz didn't want to do television in other cities and step on other promoters toes. He would send his guys places, they would sell out and never come back. Thus he lost talent because guys would work markets where they didn't have to play second billing to the Von Erichs.
ReplyDeletePoint taken on Fritz wanting to keep the status quo in our normal continuity, but without Vince making the play for cable, I don't know that even he could resist giving it a go. Watts might have been more likely to roll the dice, especially after the Freebirds came aboard.
ReplyDeleteHow much lime juice was involved?
ReplyDeletein the latter scenario, a young Stephanie McMahon would grow up to make a documentary showing a cement mixer taking down Tower 7.
ReplyDeleteFritz wouldn't have stepped on toes, but Bill Watts would have said, "Fuck you I'll run shows wherever I want."
ReplyDeleteEric Bischoff.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Crockett only overspend BECAUSE he was competing with Vince?
ReplyDeleteI think it'd take more than a cement mixer to kill Vince.
ReplyDeleteListen here brother! What you gonna do mixer!
ReplyDeleteIts me Austin, it was me all along
ReplyDeleteProbably with the UWF is that the mid-80's oil glut slump that befall Oklahoma and Texas would still be there with Vince getting hit by a mixer or not.
ReplyDeletePlus Crockett's chances of making PPV money with Starrcade '87 and the Bunkhouse Stampeded wouldn't have been thwarted by Vince counter programming with the Survivor Series and the free USA broadcast of the first Royal Rumble.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt. But cable/advertising revenue might have offset that while allowing Watts to a) keep taping in OK and b) build up a fanbase elsewhere like World Class did through its syndication package.
ReplyDeleteWithout Vince, you probably have the WWF (run by Gorilla Monsoon), AWA, and Crockett as the top 3 promotions with no one making Vince like money and domination. Gagne still had Hogan and didn't know what he had.
ReplyDeleteI now have an overwhelming urge to install a flux capacitor in a cement truck.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, maybe not. Didn't Vince steal his time slots on USA from a promotion based out of Texas? Maybe without Vince around to offer a
ReplyDelete"safer" product (I recall they got booted from the station for some kind of crazy angle with pig blood?), they would have been wrestling players in the cable revolution of the 80s.
Even without Vince, I have a feeling USA would have been players in the wrestling game with Bill Watts or somebody else.
He did it for The Rock
ReplyDeleteThe Butcher!!
ReplyDeleteWasn't a lot of Crockett's extravagant spending due to the pressure Vince was putting on him?? So if Vince was dead would that poor money management be a little more in check?
ReplyDeleteIt's "What'cha", not "What you".
ReplyDeleteBetter yet:
"WHAT'cha gonna DO, Brother?"
I have my own thoughts on those two, but it was some kind of shit, not blood, that got Southwest Championship Wrestling kicked off of USA.
ReplyDeleteSCW, incidentally, was owned by Tully Blanchard's dad Joe, but with most of the talent being booked out of Dallas/Fritz.
Not with Flair on the payroll.
ReplyDeleteUndertaker.
ReplyDeleteBUCKLE UP STEPHANIE!
Scott, you are getting the weirdest shit in your inbox these days.
ReplyDelete1: Scott's got the right idea there. As long as Vince can keep the Garden selling out, and the crowds good elsewhere, he can still get top talent in for good runs. And maybe he hits that right note with someone else... but Scott's options aren't it I feel. JYD and Von Erich are still drug problems waiting to backfire, and I just can't see Snuka bringing the massive houses. Orndorff? Andre getting one run on top (as a face)?
ReplyDelete2: That creates a rather wild 80's IMO... Without Vince being able to ride Hulk, and cherry-pick the remains, could the AWA remain viable? Could JCP avoid getting stretched out with the loss of the classic boundaries broken by Vince? Could Watts survive the oil bust somehow? Or is this one of those "If Vince doesn't do it, someone else will eventually" moments, and we're all cursing a different name(s) at times today?
But a HUGE YES! to the idea that Vince>Hogan. Hogan without Vince is a minor movie star with a limited ceiling. Vince without Hogan is a younger, fresher Vince Sr.
My thoughts exactly. If Watts gets hot at the right time, and USA/someone else comes calling, he's taking it.
ReplyDeleteWhoever runs in NYC wins the most money and eventually goes national anyway. Might not be as soon as Vince did and it might not turn into what the WWE currently is, but a wrestling company based out of NYC still is going to do quite well for itself.
ReplyDeleteCable TV was going to kill off the territory system one way or the other, Vince saw that first. Vince gets hit by a cement mixer, someone else gets the idea. Maybe Bill Watts sees the change, maybe Crockett, Vince or no Vince, cable TV was going to kill off the territory system.
ReplyDeleteWell, on the plus side, Macho Man would have been a 5 time champion or something absurd. so that would have been fun.
ReplyDeleteWould the WWF have continued to exist though? Vince Sr was gone and with Vince out of the picture would the company just dissolved? I know Gorilla and the Briscoes had some connections but were they actual shareholders?
ReplyDeleteMaybe...maybe...something comes out of LA to counter New York? Why did that never happen?
ReplyDelete1. The WWF would have taken longer to blow up without Hogan. Still Vince had the vision and was gonna make something work. Who does Vince go after as THE guy? I'm fuzzy on timelines, but wouldn't it have been way too soon for Luger? Plus Luger didn't have a fraction of Hogan's charisma. I'm thinking he runs with Savage and Wrestlemania takes a year or two longer to come to fruition.
ReplyDelete2. I think Crockett would have had a good chance at being the one to go national. He had the southern markets and he had the TBS connection. He was basically halfway there but didn't have the killer instinct to step on toes. Like other said, Crockett doesn't overspend without Vince putting his back to the wall. I don't see he trying to push out of his territory with the Bash. I'm thinking he gains steam with the TV time and slowly gets the NWA to work with him more. AWA dies because Verne was set in his ways and I think Crockett picks up the pieces (along with some other territories). He absorbs Watts. I think wrestling shows would be on various networks but they'd all probably be around the size of TNA with nothing near WCW or WWF levels.
Orndorff, Savage and especially Piper would have gotten runs on top. Vince probably would have thrown money at the Road Warriors and Horsemen as well.
ReplyDeleteVince Sr. cut in Monsoon and Arnold Skaaland with shares when he sold to Vince Jr. Monsoon and Skaaland sold their shares to Vince Jr. for lifetime employment contracts. Briscos only had a connection when they sold their shares of Georgia Championship Wrestling to Vince Jr.
ReplyDeleteFor #2, I could still see Ted Turner investing into Crockett but even still, I don't see it getting to a level like it did. It would have been somewhere between TNA and WCW/WWF levels with terms of ratings and success, and if the AOL/TW merger still happened, wrestling would have been shunted off the major networks to fringe ones.
ReplyDeleteGotcha...well then I think Monsoon would have been a big player on the scene, but again, nothing huge.
ReplyDeleteBut wasn't part of the reason AOLTW killed WCW the huge money it was blowing? I don't see Crockett spending anything close to what ATM Eric did.
ReplyDeleteVince is like Pacino in The Devils Advocate, he just needs Shane and Steph to have an incestuous demon baby to insure his immortality.
ReplyDeleteThey'd have killed it for it not fitting the demographics they want instead of leaking money.
ReplyDeleteLA never was a hotbed.
ReplyDeleteSan Fran/Bay Area was more geared to wrestling.
It seems weird that it isn't. With it being a media hotspot and the Japanese/Mexican connection you'd think something would've taken off there. But outside of PWG and Lucha Va Voom...it's kind of a shit hole when it comes to wrestling.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking as a native Bay Area guy, it seems incredibly strange that wrestling was big there. (Don't think there's much to it at the moment, or at least, I've heard nothing advertised).
Orndorff would have certainly gotten a shot on top and I think he could have carried it well, but not at Hogans's level. Hogan's charisma was remarkable.
ReplyDeleteBut for Vince, when the WWF doesn't, Dusty talks Crockett into buying Hogan as a monster heel to feud against (trying to cut Flair away per usual) and Hogan eventually turns face to stardom instead of Nikita when Magnum gets hurt. WWF stays regional with Mr. All-American Paul Orndorff as its top face.
Championship Wrestling from Hollywood is pretty decent for an indy company (they have full episodes for free on YouTube, or maybe their website), but overall, the Northeast is the hub of wrestling, and always kind of has been. Sure, there was money to made in Texas, Georgia, Florida, NorCal, etc... But the real money has usually been in the Philly/NYC/Boston corridor.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a really insightful question.
ReplyDeleteThe AWA might have lasted a year or 2 more without the WWF around, but they still would have met the same fate. They were like 1999-2000 WCW, just doomed to failure thanks to constant shitty management.
ReplyDeleteLA isn't really a hotbed for anything, save for fake ass bitches ("bitches" refers to both genders here, BTW). Keep in mind, they once had 2 NFL teams and couldn't keep either of them, and one moved (back) to Oakland. Fucking OAKLAND, CA, the Baltimore of the west coast, where there's another team right across the bridge. Pathetic.
ReplyDeleteI always thought of cement mixers as being rather benign -- Now I know better...
ReplyDeleteHogan dies: World Heavyweight Champ: Hillbilly Jim!
ReplyDeleteVince dies: World Heavyweight Champ: Bob Backlund (still)
Vince would have gone national with Sgt Slaughter in the Hogan role.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching this match, I wonder if Jesse Ventura and Tito Santana couldn't have gotten a run on top -- maybe even taking Hogan's place in the title switch vs. Sheiky Baby.
ReplyDeleteWith Jesse, you can pretty much graft a lot of the Hogan persona onto him. He certainly had the promo ability to make it work, and he ended up in Hollywood anyway, so who's to say he couldn't have been Thunderlips?
As far as Tito, he might have been the successor to the Morales/Backlund/Bruno "man of the people" champ, with perhaps more of an underdog aspect. Let's say he goes over Sheik in 30 hard-fought minutes with the figure four and you've got another avenue for the WWF to play to the Latino audience.
Vince didn't win the South until after 2005 or so, really. WCW fans just disappeared into the ether. JCP probably would still exist today if not for VInce. It might be called WCW, it might not. If Vince went away, assuming Patterson or Monsoon didn't do exactly what Vince did with Hogan I think we'd still have 3-4 viable companies with cable shows. If I were to guess, we'd be looking at WWF in some form, WCW, Watts and whoever buys out Verne.
ReplyDeleteHulk dies? Shit happens. He was transformative, but wrestling lives on. What does Vince do? If I were in his shoes, I'd go pay Savage and Lawler. Yes, Jerry Lawler. He could sell some tickets.
USA could have used WCCW, but that would have been an even bigger cocaine party.
ReplyDeleteI think that Vince (Jr.) really wanted to break the trend of booking "ethnic" champions like his father did to appeal to the NY crowd, so Tito might not have gotten the spot. Same probably goes for JYD and maybe even Snuka. I think the mindset was, to go national, you need an All American whiteboy.
ReplyDeleteHopefully Vince could have just held on from Hogan's era until Tom Magee finally hit the scene.
ReplyDeleteYeah no. I mean he could've tried. But Slaughter looked like someones grandfather even thirty years ago. I doubt that the MTV crowd would've bit for that.
ReplyDeleteDude, Slaughter was hugely popular in the 80's. I was a kid back in that era and everyone knew him. He was in friggin GI Joe and had his own action figure. He totally would've worked as a replacement for Hogan.
ReplyDeleteExactly what I was going to say.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in NWA country and among the kids at my school, Slaughter was easily the 3rd most popular wrestler behind Flair and Hogan.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Hogan v. Cement Mixer: What about Kerry Von Erich in Hogan's role? I think that was talked about before on the BoD. Kerry was a 0.4 on the Hogan charisma scale, but had the right look. Of course, there was the drug problem and getting him to leave the Dallas territory. It makes a nice little "what if".
ReplyDeleteHe might have been popular, but he wouldn't have been "the guy" because he wasn't a Muscle Beach bodybuilder type. Vince wouldn't have gone for it and he wouldn't have been a good guy to do all the MTV stuff with. He looked like someone on your dad's bowling team. Still could've been a huge house show draw.
ReplyDeleteI would think Kerry's appeal was a bit too regional for Vince.
ReplyDeleteProbably some truth to this, though I also think it had to be the RIGHT kinda white boy. Not too southern, not too Texan.
ReplyDeleteDon't know about the Horsemen but the Road Warriors would have been exactly what Vince was looking for.
ReplyDeleteOakland has actually gotten a lot nicer recently. It's no longer the ghetto it was in the 80s and 90s. Hipsters are gentrifying that shit like nobodies business.
ReplyDeleteIt's now the Brooklyn of the West Coast.
I'm aware of the what. I'd just like to know why.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think some producer would be like "Wrestling is cheap television that gets decent ratings. And there's enough people in the LA area, and another regions within the area.
You could run San Diego, San Bernardino, Burbank, Long Beach, Anaheim. Not much travel for the workers and pretty easy access to Japanese and Mexican talent.
Fuck, I should start talking to producers.
I don't know when you grew up but Slaughter was over like rover in the mid-80's. WWF might not have reached the same heights they did with Hogan but I feel like Slaughter could've put a few million dollars in Vince's pocket. There was a huge wave of patriotism back then and Slaughter was on the cusp of that. He might not have had the same look but people loved the guy.
ReplyDeleteMust I keep reminding you that VINCE WON'T DIE!!!
ReplyDelete1.) I think Savage would have been the man.
ReplyDelete2.) Vince ain't dying, but hypothetically speaking if he did who would have taken over the WWF at that time?
It's just not a West Coast thing, I guess. I'd think you'd be better off trying it in the Bay Area, or maybe even Seattle. Or Vegas, if you don't mind a bit of an Impact Zone vibe.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me wonder what the Buffalo of the West Coast is.
ReplyDeleteSacramento?
ReplyDeleteIsn't Sac town like 4 times the size of Buffalo though?
ReplyDeleteAu contraire. Vince was going after him hardcore but couldn't get him, and then the drug problems came to light and WWF cooled on him as a top guy. But if Kerry had been clean and available in 82-83, he would have ended up on top of the business IMO.
ReplyDeleteYou're not even seeing the weirdest shit. I'm only putting about 1% of it through.
ReplyDeleteWhat's Buffalo like? Cause I'm thinking Redding or maybe Eugene. They're kinda away from civilization, decently sized (kinda) with their own culture that's separate from the rest of the state.
ReplyDeleteVegas ain't that far from LA. Couple hours drive.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Bay Area...eh...rent's really expensive there. Maybe you could do shit in the East Bay but I'm really curious where the fuck you'd run it. Lots of outdoor shows or tiny garage deals because I can't think of many venues that'd be good for wrestling.
I'm just curious as to why it isn't a West Coast thing. Sure there are a couple great West Coast workers (Samoa Joe, Bryan, SDR) but they all made their names in other places.
Just imagine if they both got hit by cement mixers while on their way to meet each other lol...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I probably couldn't find the interview even if I searched for it but I'm sure there was one back from the 80's where Vince said that if Hogan hadn't been available, then either Snuka or Slaughter would have been the guy chosen to lead the expansion.
Wrestling fans loved the guy, and GI Joe fans. He could have been big, but I don't see WWF blowing up like they did with Slaughter at the helm. Maybe I'm wrong. But I think having a muscled up rockstarrish guy as their champ was what made them seem like something for everyone, not some burly military type. I just don't think the casual fans would care as much. Maybe I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteJesse?
ReplyDeletevery doubtful. His post wrestling career as a broadcaster and politician has obscured the fact that he was a mediocre midcarder.
Probably a gorilla sized player.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. He definately had the look Vince loves. I just figured with Vince's obsession with creating his own things he wouldn't want someone with the roots of the Von Erichs.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of hard to describe to someone who's never been here. We're poor, but not the "barren wasteland" poor like Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, etc... We really do have have our own culture (and almost our own language), though. Put it this way: we all love Toronto, even though it's in another country, places like Texas and Cali might as well be on another planet to us.
ReplyDeleteWhy it isn't a West Coast thing? You tell me.
ReplyDeleteHrm, factory-poor or farmer-poor? Cause if you're factory poor I could see you as the Long Beach of New York.
ReplyDeleteAnd what's the poison of choice? Weed and liquor or are we talking meth and molly?
Factory poor, but it's been an issue since the 70s. Like, the recession and housing market crash barely affected us because we were already broke to begin with. As I've said before though, it's really nice here, and an insanely cheap place to live.
ReplyDeletePoison of choice? This is the most alcoholic city in the U.S., and while I think it's somewhere around 5% of people nationwide regularly smoke weed it's more like 50% here. Seriously. Meth is pretty much unheard of around here, blow/crack is around but not a big thing. Our poison is heroin and pills, Xanax and Oxys go for huge money around here. We're (or they're, I've always been strictly a booze/weed guy) trying to clean up though, suboxone is going for 2 1/2 times what it costs legally right now.
NWA88 I CALL ON YOU!!!!
ReplyDeleteHuh...kinda sounds like Long Beach. Lot of factories/warehouses out here. And weed? It is the home of Snoop Dogg.
ReplyDelete