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DIR Return to: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week
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#Post#: 28229--------------------------------------------------
Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week; Hotlanta
By: SheriffLonestar Date: July 5, 2014, 5:44 am
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This week's post isn't actually a PPV, its a TV show, but I
watched it a few weeks ago and though it was well worth some
analysis. This week's show is Georgia Championship Wrestling,
from Atlanta Georgia, now while none of the matches are you know
any good. It does go to show that the more things change, the
more they stay the same.
Georgia Championship Wrestling was an NWA affiliated office that
ran from 1944 until the company, and more importantly its time
slot on TBS The Super Station were sold out to Vince McMahon in
1984. The company had moved to the TBS long before it was a
cable station, in fact it was a UHF station and an upstart with
it started in 1972, and Georgia Championship Wrestling was going
under major changes too. Ray Gunkel who was the assistant booker
for the company and with the infirmary nature of the actually
owner Paul Jones, had a heart attack and passed way leaving the
company in the hands of his wife Ann. A power play however left
her out of business affairs when Bill Watts bought into the
company and it became another branch of Mid South. Well if the
NWA was going to play dirty, she could too, so she set up an
outlaw promotion called All South. Being a somewhat smoother
operator, and close personal friend of Ted Turner it was she he
secured the TBS time slot away from Bill Watts and secured her
own company's success for two years. The NWA which by the way
often stood for “NO WOMEN ALLOWED” had a think and drafted in
veteran promoter Jim Barnett who owned promotions in Indiana,
Michigan, Ohio, Colorado and Australia (interestingly the
Australian one was called World Championship Wrestling). The
promotional war was on, and while Watts had tried to his usually
practice to attract crowds Barnett changed tack, locking in
arenas to exclusive contracts with his company. The wrestlers
were torn, they liked Ann and her TV exposure, but Jim had the
bigger arenas making bigger pay offs and NWA connections that
meant title shots and money and not being black balled
everywhere else in the country for being with The Competition.
Eventually Barnett took over, and this is really the product of
that war. Its 1981, we have Gordon Solie, Roddy Piper in a suit
and a bunch of squash matches, but what struck me about this
entire enterprise is, despite all of the advances we have in TV
presentation. This is basically how Impact Wrestling works. A TV
studio rigged with a ring and an interview/commentary area and
you are good to go. Piper is exceptional as the know all heel
commentator, however he never stops putting people over. This is
where he developed that fast lip to match up his brawling
ability that wowed crowds in the WWF. It has all the stars of
the NWA of course, Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair promoting their
World Title match at the Omni. It also has the World Tag Team
Champions The Minnesota Wrecking Crew Gene and Ole Anderson
pushing their wares as well. The Andersons were basic to say the
least, but they had that intimidation factor that you don't see
very often any more, in fact they were the prototype Samoa Joe
in that sense in heel form. It had Stan Hansen as a face, which
is just weird because everywhere else he went he was a pure bred
heel, but he proved he could work both sides of the fence here.
What I do find interesting is that most of the matches, even
with no name enhancement talent, are 5-/50 affairs no one gets
shut out completely even when the monster heel Super Destroyer
is in there he lets his guy have some time back at him. A
basically a fully balanced card, it is no wonder this thing
became an institution and the basis for World Championship
Wrestling in years to come.
Of course Vince bought out the territory in 1984 and crashed and
burned in six months. He didn't understand Southern wrestling
and gave them matches from New York in his developing “cartoon”
style. He sold out to Jim Crockett Promotions not long after
which basically bank rolled the first Wrestlemania, but it gave
Crockett that all important national TV slot and enabled them to
become a world player in a very short period of time. While it
isn't state of the art by any means, it shows how wrestling has
developed thirty years on, but really we are still watching the
same formats, for the Atlanta studio read The Impact Zone, for
Gordon Solie read Mike Tenay and for Piper read Taz and you will
have a thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half.
Enjoy the show.
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hisp1j2VqY0
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