Jim Cornette on The Final Months of Jim Crockett Promotions 

Same here brother! Thought I was the only one

There’s a lot of us out here doing the same!!!!

I knew we were many!

@@kamikokahr7679 Same here

Here too

@@danieltilson4912 Hey he told the story!

@@danieltilson4912 Here's how it went: Homemade Shit.

Hes got a bicycle!

And that's why Dusty dumbed himself out of the wcw

@@danieltilson4912 how is that speaking ill if it’s true?

Brian Norman same here man. MoF I’m doing it now. Good shit

That's the same thing I do, or I listen to observer

Scott Danielson Hloo I

I lol. Li

same gere

I'm from Knoxville. Clinton to be exact. What's Jim up to these days?

Honest? Seriously?

I was born 80, but from Ireland so took longer for stuff to arrive on our shores so am like yalls age when comes to wrassling but I love jim's insights and knowledge

@@aidanduffy3407 1985 in Philadelphia PA WWF TERRITORY 2 o'clock all through the 80s was so awesome I was 12 years old.

Lee Grace lol your hella dumb. People born after 2000 have jobs and it surprises you someone who’s born in 93. A 27 year old having a job makes you feel old? I feel sorry for you

I love the old stories 😎 wrestling will never be that great again 😂

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That line is why I keep coming back to this.

@@BBBoggs lol no way that's the only reason lol. The line is great though.

Truly, @@scrappy93 ! I think of the 1 line and look this up and then end up listening to the whole thing.

Exactly.

Not only that, but the heat comes with the territory. Remember when Ric Flair was the booker of WCW business was starting to turn around but Jim Turd (as people have been calling him now) wouldn't leave Ric alone and Ric resigned as a result? Dusty's booking of the Horsemen was almost like TNA's booking of the Aces and Eights. Having them lose constantly and not win.

@@connordripps2173 He was booking himself to whoop them night after night as if they were chicken shit heals. When Tully complained about it, Dusty got butt hurt and banned him from the company plane and that inspired Tully to leave which inspired Arn to leave. Dusty also started booking Terry Taylor to lose because he was so bothered that he heard Taylor imitating his voice on the plane. Dusty was a shit booker who was all about Dusty all the time.

Are you supposed to make everyone happy or are you supposed to make money to pay everyone?

Mindless Droid I remember when it started on TBS up here in NY.

Living in a small regional town in country Australia, I only saw what the few stations we had were willing to show. Didn't get WWF until 1992 and that eventually disappeared. Then it wasn't until late 1998 when WWF Superstars randomly showed up, that I started getting regular wrestling. Never got JCP and didn't even get Turner branded WCW until 1999. I would have loved JCP as a kid. I was born in the wrong place, for someone that ended up loving wrestling. Btw, it took until early 2006, before any live wrestling shows even came close to my hometown. Then mid last decade they stopped coming and I've seen about 1 live wrestling event in I think 5 years.

@Tom Henesey It was it was called the World Wide Wrestling Federation.They then shortened it to WWF

Good old Channel 17 on WTBS in Boston....I always thought JCP was more real than WWF.

Yep. The fall of JCP NWA had nothing to do with Vince, Dustys booking, or the accountant. The Crocketts screwed the Crocketts 1- While Vince was living middle class and flying commercial, the Crocketts spent millions on houses, vacation homes, cars, boats, and 2 jets. 2- While Dustys booking got a bit stale (it rebounded and head up during/after the Bash 1988), it was the Crocketts responsibility to reign him in or replace him. 3- Crocketts decision to kick Tully off the jet, lead to Tully and Arn leaving. The horsemen were destroyed and it damaged Dustys future plans for a turnaround after the Bash 4- The Crocketts spent about $5 million buying up closing territories. Why? They could have got the talent, arenas, and TV slots without paying anything for territories. Crockett burned through millions and had no money for a rainy day. Mr Big Shot. 5- The accountant was not to blame. Cornette spent an hour going through the attendance and gate receipts for the last year of their business. Every wrestler, manager, and worker could figure out they were losing $$$$. An accountant gives you a picture of your revenue, expenses, and net income/loss. The crocketts would get a breakdown every night, week, month, quarter, and year of their financials. The accountant did not hide it from them. Are we to believe they never knew? Never asked? Never saw their own books? Cmon! 6- Jim Crockett and Dusty had moved to Texas. Why? They leave their home base to a remote office in Texas away from everyone? They took themselves out of their own loop. 7- They had TBS Superstation to themselves. And the crocketts were still spending a fortune on syndicated TV time slots that were bleeding cash. Jim Crockett destroyed his own company. No one else.

@@jimmyv.495 Agreed... F'ing Raccoon Eyes was the one steering the ship.....

You're overlooking the fact that Crockett spent a lot of money buying up Professional Wrestling Promotions across the South and The Midwest and ran more and more shows in other markets, his Company had never run shows and neglected The Towns where his Family had been running shows for almost 60 Years. When Fans stopped buying tickets in towns where they have been running shows for decades they were in trouble. Crockett should have just let most of those companies just go out of business and if he wanted to run shows in some cities, pick and choose.

The death of JCP was largely mismanagement but McMahon sped up what would’ve happened anyways in all likelihood. Crockett made a lot of poor financial decisions that doomed the company in the rapid effort to expand to compete with McMahon. The choice to try and compete with Vince nationally instead of focusing on what had always made you money was a bad choice. The attempt to go national so quickly without any thought out and concrete plan in doing so led to the company spreading out to run money losing shows in markets that didn’t know JCP, including the costs of expanding TV everywhere, and the lack of focus on the stage towns ranked the revenue maker. JCP in some ways I think was the one forward thinking territory, having been in closed circuit awhile and moving to PPV, which other territories didn’t do. That’s where McMahon does play a role because the sabatouge of the PPVs was a huge hit to the company. But when you evaluate a lot of choices Crockett made towards the end it doesn’t feel like he wasn’t smart or inept but just had an issue with ego that guided decisions over being prudent. I think ego is why he needed to make a rapid effort to go national. I think ego is why he bled money to have tv in toms of places he didn’t really need. I think ego is why they moved to the Texas offices rather than staying in the home base. I also think it’s why they pin blame on the accountant for why they didn’t know they were in the financial position they were in. Maybe they should have been told sooner but a competent owner would review your position regularly enough that it shouldn’t be some surprise out of nowhere.

​@@jimmyv.495That's a GREAT breakdown. You should do one for Verne and the AWA. It's remarkable how many of the same mistakes both Verne and the Crockett's made. Too much ego and not enough common sense.

Sh0ckmaster I'd enroll in a heart beat.

I've just realized like three weeks ago these were on youtube and I've been thoroughly enjoying listening to them at night.

I'd take a History of Wrestling class. Fun!

I'm thinking that Jimmy took detailed notes so that the bookers wouldn't try to screw him out of $.

Yes... it's good to know how things were back in the day

Corny RU-vid

I'd say buying the promotions that you could have waited for the companies to die, scoop up the talent were more of a mistake than the Jets.

You couldn't tell him that he was too busy riding high and thought he would be able to recoup the money he spent.

Buying other promotions gave them the roster and local tv slots. Back then that mattered.

@@TheNanoman79 Vince and the WWF/E never had a private jet during the 80s boom. Crockett had 2. Vince never got one until after they went public in 1999.

Rob Finlay yup, Vince flew commercial well into the 90s

you wanna get real fucked up, take a shot every time "what/where/who ever the fuck"

85futureshock Along with happens when the person at the top figures there's nothing wrong with spending money like water.

Memphis was the last southern promotion to close. November 1997.

There's things about damn near every territory that I miss.

ECW closing was happy. ECW was crap.

Look at the craziness of going from 1986-1990. Only a 4 year period and yet the product was night and day different along with fan support. Truly going from 86-88 shows the massive changes but definitely so to 90 and I can’t think of any other company save for WWE from 1981-1985 that changed as drastically in such a short period of time. Take today’s WWE. Go back 4 years it’s the same damned product, same talent, same fans. You can go back 8 years and save for the women’s division and NXT, it’s been the same deal with same fans and popularity. Crockett from 1986 to WCW of 1990 is two different worlds. I miss southern wrestling very much and especially so now that everyone wants to try and be WWE rather than deliver something different. You can’t be or beat WWE. Stop trying to mirror their production values and attempting to copy. I’d much rather see a gritty southern style promotion and it may become successful in a niche way and appeal to older fans but it may also be different enough that young fans weaned only on WWE may decide it feels raw and gritty and unique.

Yeah man. Lots of crazy stuff happened behind the scenes.

Jamie McVay- er, that's your fault. What a stupid statement.

Good god, if you fucking morons don't get the meaning behind his statement, then that's YOUR fault. His meaning is fairly obvious - wrestling was better when he didn't know everyone's basically an asshole that looks to stick the knife in the back at any given opportunity - with the possible exception of Mick Foley who chose to do grievous harm to himself and shorten his career (and life) by years in order to accomplish a measure of success rather than do the predatory thing. It's a hyperbolic statement, it's supposed to be taken with levity. Fucking jackasses.

I get what he's saying, before the internet told you so and so is coming to WWE, you would pop when someone big from wcw/NWA/AWA shows up

Yeah I have been reading a bunch of old Wrestling Observers from the late 80's. I am so glad I never read any of that stuff back in the day and just enjoyed the product. It would of been strange knowing that everyone hated Dusty Rhodes that JCP and WCW always lost money and the WWF did everything in its power to ruin them.

I loved 89 WCW... 89 and even 90 had so much talent Flair , Funk , Steamboat, Muta Lex, Sting, LOD, SST, Midnights, Freebirds, Steiners, Varsity Club. It is a shame they didn't do better business that year because the product was great but from then on they were in a constant cost cutting mode. A stable booker would of done wonders for the product as well.

KP LLC totally agree with you. 89 and 90 were very good years for WCW but 1991 wasn’t. Flair leaving seemed to signal a downturn in quality.

I watched those 505 shows here in NY. I was so happy to see something other than WWF.

@robert tidwell During that period of wrestling, you didn't know what was a work or a shoot!! Great times!!

In 88 that's when the transition was made.

Aren't you someone?

@@johnwilburn my sentiments exactly!

Didn't Eric Bishoff cover all of that in his book Controversy Creates Cash?

Crusader7077 I was also at that 88 Bash in Oakland. Ive been to better shows from top to bottom but the war games main event was the best match Ive ever seen live.

J.R., I don't know if you'll remember me or not, but this is Jeff from way, way back at Roland's wrestling school in Hayward back in the early to mid 90s (the one collecting tapes for Roland) when you and the others used to occasionally rent out the facility. Good to hear from you.

Crusader7077 yes I remember. You taped an excellent angle of the sabu-candido match in san jose where my head got opened by the chair shot right? how ya been?

Yeah I remember that show. Also where Matt Hyson (Spike Dudley) debuted. I'm doing fine. Good to hear from you.

That's cool how 2 friends back from highschool got back in contact with each other

And to think that Norfolk went from $150k to $12k after Starrcade 1988. All i got to say about that 30 years later is "Holy shit!"

David Hall Don’t forget the horrendous Dusty finish at Starcade 87 with The Road Warriors.

David Hall: Yeah, imo, it's the worst instance of the "Dusty Finish".

No. It was because Luger was bleeding and Tommy Young saw it and stopped the match. Back in those days, blood was a no no.

Connor Dripps dude Flair started bleeding buckets in the seventies and did it all the way until 2010

@@connordripps1480 uhh no. Just fucking no. It was done since they were in Baltimore

The card had to be rewritten because there were so many injuries. All of the Champions from Wrestlemania 31 were injured for 32 except for AJ Lee who retired and one of them (Tyson Kidd) would never return to the ring.

That would be the matter of if Tully didn't privately badmouth Dusty and Dusty's booking which is one of the reasons why Tully was kicked off Crockett's plane which led to Arn and Tully quitting and going to the WWF.

Kinda wild to think about doing but I can see why networks did it at first. Big risk to not get an established PPV like WM which had just done an 8-10% buy rate which is around 400-600K buys. Hard to risk having that established success to take a chance on a new PPV. And Vince did have some backup with closed circuit. WM 3 did 450K in closed circuit ticket sales on top of the PPV sales so he was in a spot he could take the risk I think. Obviously the networks put a stop to it quickly though.

nwa was too uptight and it killed them Vince won like always

Unfortunately Vince always wins.

@@danieltilson4912 the fuck does that mean

@dbag0584 thanks. Had a great time. Got some good pics that night. Nice memories

They never did to my knowledge. I asked a guy who is a wrestling historian and he even said he never knew of those 2 teams facing off.

I have a really long shoot interview with the Road warriors in 2000 and the interviewer asked them and they said no

I do believe in a 4 way

He isn't telling them what to do. He just said if you carry Starcade then he wouldn't allow them to air WM. So it was up to them if they wanted to lose out on the WM money or not. So they choose the option that give them more money. Remember, this WM was the next one after the huge record setting WM 3. The ppv companies knew this year be huge too and in no way were they gonna miss out on having that money. They would have made maybe half that money if they were lucky on carrying Starcade. Vince just made a cutthroat business move. It wasn't illegal, a dirty move yes but nowhere near illegal. And it's why Vince won in the end. Cause while those other territories were still living by the old code and rules they all agreed to with a handshake. Vince wasn't about that life and knew that with cable becoming huge, that this was the chance for one promotion to become national and air everywhere. So he did everything he could to become that and be last Man standing. He saw the future while all other owners believed business would stay the same with this guy having this area and whatnot. Before they saw the way business was going, Vince was already way ahead of the game. And if Ted Turner didn't own multiple cable companies and channels, Vince would have been the only Major promotion in America. But since Vince had pissed him off years before, he was dead set on always having wrestling to challenge him or atleast not let him be the only game in town. If it was anyone but Ted Turner, Vince would have owned all of wrestling since 89-90. Maybe a few scattered small indie promotions but nothing like WCW. And without WCW we probably never get the attitude era, NWO, Austin, Rock, shit wrestling itself probably completely dies before 2000 cause it would have never recovered from the terrible 1995-96 lowpoint. Cause without WCW to be another option for wrestlers to go to. Hogan never leaves and that means NWO doesn't exist which means WWF doesn't get it's ass in gear and copy ECW and create the attitude era and Monday night wars. So Vince should thank Turner cause his company probably dies cause he wouldn't have been able to afford to stay open with the numbers they did in 95-96. They barely held on then and luckily the wrestling boom saved them and then allowed Vince to go public with Stock and WWE becomes a billion dollar company and a global brand. WWE can afford the poor numbers these days cause they make money from so much other shit. Wasn't like that pre Monday night wars. But whatever I still hate WWE. AEW is the show to watch. So far it's so much better. They still learning but they on their way to blwoing WWE out the water with their product. Yeah Cornette may hate it but he has hated everything since 1990. If people wanted his style of wrestling, Smoky Mountain be still around or his version of ROH would still be around. Jim just needs to understand times have changed. He doesn't have to like it, but he atleast needs to understand that old style of wrestling just doesn't sell. You can have elements of it, which AEW has, it just won't be a carbon copy of the shit he loved as a kid.

Kelvin Crabtree Bruce prichard did a whole episode of his podcast about Houston wrestling. Was pretty good

Kelvin Crabtree Ric Flair bro

Watch Back To The Territories with Jim Cornette. He did a episode with Bruce Prichard about Vince's war with Paul Boesch.

?

Mr. Cornette is the absolute best

THEEEEE BEST

How I love thee, let me count the ways

Wish I could read or listen more on this topic somewhere

Booking was rather QUESTIONABLE in 88, to say the least. Fans tuned out

And hall and nash and Hart and everyone lol

That’s why the Invasion failed. They were all sitting at home getting more than Vince would ever consider paying them to come in and get pinned by Undertaker’s wife.

@@WCWThunderRosa right. I agree. Guranteed contracts are great for the wrestlers themselves but we're bad for the business and everyone who was a fan. Wwf use to pay em shit lol but they had to work and draw to get paid so effort was required imo

I think the WWE downside guarantee model was probably the best of both worlds. Wrestlers have a form of guarantee to be able to somewhat plan their life but still have ample incentive to work and draw since they share in making more money when the company makes more money. I think the set guarantee model is good for wrestlers but has obvious flaws depending on the wrestler. Not having a way to exceed the number doesn’t provide incentive to leap the card in a sense because you could rise to the main event but not make that money level. It also has risks if you have high paid veterans like WCW did who are going to be fine with sitting at home and collecting a check. Set guarantees aren’t necessarily a bad thing but depend largely on the attitude of the wrestler in whether it’ll be good or bad. A wrestler with the right attitude isn’t an issue but a wrestler content to just collect a check it brings obvious problems. But guaranteed deals weren’t new to WCW. As stated JCP had guarantees - if you didn’t have the established revenue share model like WWF did you had to provide a guarantee to compete for talent.

Can't do that if you want to be a national promotion. You have to branch out. But there's the right way to do it, and the Crockett way of doing it.

Folks didn't care for this George Scott, Jim Herd corporate booking we were forced to watch!! Ric Flair as the booker was doing good numbers but unfortunately Herd couldn't leave Flair alone and ruined that momentum.

Actually Warrior was Dingo Warrior in World Class before he jumped to WWF

Sting was called Sting in the bladerunners, his partner (ultimate warrior) was called Rock i think

They always sucked

Awesome?they were terrible and not over at all

@@smarkslowplay3512 was being sarcastic, I know they sucked lol

86 if at all

Because Jim has literally said on *multiple* occasions he wrote down and kept most everything he ever did in the wrestling business. The location, date, who they wrestled, who went over, how many fans were there, what the gate was and what their payment was. He has multiple books worth of information which he will refer too whenever he needs too, which is why you hear paper flipping in the background, he's flipping through his midnight express book.