All of my friends were in love with the WWF cartoon, but I was always more drawn to the more realistic presentation of GCW, and the Studio show (over the Arena show) is still my favorite model for a wrestling tv program. A stellar roster of very legitimate feeling performers, a rabid studio audience, and the Great Gordon Solie. This is still what I think of when I think of Professional Wrestling.
@@goldenpeacock8843 Absolutely! That great grudge angle was the very first thing I can remember ever seeing on TV, here in the Nashville we also saw it on TBS, as well as seeing Memphis wrestling on our local Channel 2. Good good times!
I grew up in a Louisiana. GCW on the Superstation and our own Mid-South Wrestling. What made Mid-South so great was they would have main events and title matches on tv as well as the local arenas.
When we first got cable as a kid, I remember stumbling on Tommy Rich vs Ted DiBiase for the National title. Early LOD, Buzz & Brett Sawyer, Jay Youngblood, The Spoiler, Ronnie Garvin vs Jake Roberts for the TV belt, a few Memphis-style music videos for Kabuki, Jimmy Valiant, and the Bruise Brothers, etc. Man, I was hooked.
Saturday mornings in the late 70's and early 80's with Gordon Solie was some of my favorite childhood memories. Then when they came to my town or they announced a show coming to my town with that music playing as they announced it. The best thing ever
Georgia Championship Wrestling was the greatest wrestling show ever. It was the pro wrestling all-star game every Saturday 6:05-8:05. You never knew who would show up. Gordon Solie as great as he was, raised his own bar to new heights in Georgia. The announcing team of Solie and Roddy Piper was unparalleled to this day. It was of non negotiable importance to be in front of the TV tuned in to WTBS no later than 6:04pm every Saturday. My friends who were not wrestling fans quickly learned I was unavailable and not to be disturbed for those two hours. It is my all-time favorite television program, with nothing else coming close.
Watching early Piper on Georgia championship wrestling was amazing. He was the perfect color man with Gordon solie. Thanks for the great video Dave, always cool to learn the history of promotions
Yeah, when I was a kid we got cable (early eighties) I remember Piper as a color man with Gordon solie. If I remember correctly his first feud was with Bullet Bob Armstrong? And I think the next big one was with Tommy "wildfire" Rich. Those were the best wrestling times for me.
The Very first time I laid eyes on GCW, I saw King Kong Bundy storming the ring to attack the Legion of Doom, which consisted of Paul Ellering, Jake Roberts, and the Road Warriors, the studio audience exploded, Gordon Solie lost his voice, and I became an instant fan!
I've seen clips of the GCW show from the late 70s-Early 80s and it is some of the best wrestling TV from the era! Thank you for covering this and for explaining how GCW got folded into Mid Atlantic under JCP in a way that I can understand without needing a flowchart. I just wish the WWE would make these episodes of GCW available on Peacock.
Cable brought gcw to The D on Sat. late afternoon. Mad dog buzz sawyer, wild fire and that hugely overated ole pigface anderson. Rowdy Riddy Piper ruled on gcw as the color guy and bad azz. Of course Naitch. Woo.
I grew up watching GCW as a kid and I even went to the Atlanta tv station and the Omni a few times to watch it live. It was so much better than WWF which seemed so cartoonish to me. I couldn't even watch WWF growing up. I really missed GCW when it went off the air.
My dad told me he preferred GCW/WCW a lot more then the WWF and in the 80’s he would come down to Georgia to see family and they would always go see wrestling down there
Nobody watched wwf in north Georgia we was upset when our wrestling was taken from us .lots of people stop watching any wrestling. You could see the famous wrestlers on tv then you could go to the local high school or other small place and see them it was awsome .after Vince got it all that was over.
@@freedom2084 Ole ended up in that situation by being an insufferable asshole to his business partners who sold the floor out from under him. How much of a dick do you have to be to be screwed THAT hard. And by his own admission, he got offered an out by McMahon and turned it down.
True, but younger fans would only know Jay and Mark Briscoe (BTW, Jack and Jerry spelled their names Brisco), forgetting about the short run in IMPACT of Wes Brisco (Jack's son).
I was extremely annoyed to learn that the current Brisco brothers have NO relation to Jerry and Jack. And it's not their real names either. So what's the excuse for using that name?
These videos are exactly what I'm looking for. I find trying to understand the history of the various promotions (other than WWE) very complex, but your commentary is pretty helpful. It would have been nice if everyone was a little more creative with naming things.
Well researched and beautifully articulated. Thanks for such a great history about GCW, I only knew about the Vince McMahon Black Saturday stuff never any of this.
Another point on Ole he gave wrestling some of the best characters ever. He created The Road Warriors and the Legion of Doom led by Paul Ellering. Most won't remember this but The Legion of Doom consisted of more than just the Road Warriors. They also had Jake "The Snake" Roberts, The Spoiler, Matt Borne, King Kong Bundy, Arn Anderson, The Iron Sheik and the original Sheik. Though Bundy actually wasn't considered a member later on. Paul Ellering declared on tv that they were just using Bundy as a tool, and it would cost to much to feed him if he was a member. This angle would cause King Kong Bundy to turn face and brawl with many of the Legion of Doom wrestlers especially the Road Warriors. Even back then Bundy would insist on a 5 count when he pinned his victims.
Gordon Solie also did NWA matches it the Tampa armory. I grew up watching them in the '70s and '80s. And the Briscoe brothers had a transmission shop in Tampa forever.
Thank you! I had heard bits and pieces of what happened but your chronological breakdown was excellent. I grew up in NYC in the 70's and 80's. We were one of the 1st families to get cable in my neighborhood. I jumped on GCW immediately when it came on TBS. This kicked the boring WWF in the ass. I couldn't wait for Sat and Sun just because of these shows. They were much better at creating storylines, gimmicks, moves, promos. You had to watch every promo cause fights would constantly break out. And they did something WWF never did - they showed clip from house shows around the world. This is how we learned about Japanese wrestlers and Cali promotions. They would show grainy footage of title changes which would create all kinds of shock and awe in the studio. It was insane. This was second to ECW's run. Loved it.
Thanks again Dave ! I love and enjoy the history of wrestling more than i do the present product . I do enjoy modern wrestling somewhat . But nothing is the same as it was , for good or bad . I started watching in 84 , 85 as a kid . But I did my best to learn all i could about what happened before . It was A LOT harder without the internet !!!
From the wrestlers to the bookers to the anncrs, GCW rocked. For those who really dug GCW style, Black Saturday was black, indeed. Ole has been problematic in many ways but kudos to him for standing up in this instance. A+ vid...as always.
Another great video. 70s and 80s wrestling is where I lived, so I enjoy seeing your histories of the territories. I would REALLY love it if you would do a look back at the Canadian wrestling scenes, East, Central, and West.
Ole wasn't excluded from the Hall of Fame induction... He was asked, but in good old Ole fashion he told them to "SHOVE IT UP THEIR" well you know. lol
I saw an interview where Jack Brisco mentioned that with the success GCW was having touring Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, they tried to convince Jim Barnett to take it national, and tour other states, but Jim was friends with the other promoters, and didn't want to infringe on their territories. I wonder how that would have played out if the Briscos had gotten their way?
What's really funny is that I'm from Charleston, WV and we always got GCW/WCW and WWF/WWE would only come to Huntington 45 minutes to the West. At the time I was too young to understand territories.
Great video man, we moved to South Ga from Michigan. I thought we had some wrestling fans up. No sir, some of these folks down here were hardcore wrestling fans man. Also talking to some of the old timers about black Saturday. They still can’t stand VKM 😂. I believe some of them called him a and I quote “wormy pos” 😂
GCW at its peak, became the de facto NWA flagship program and territory. Obviously, TBS was a huge part of this, but also because GA was the central talent hub, drawing performers from Fla, Mid-Atlantic, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Canada, west coast, AWA, and even WWF. This was due to many hands in the ownership pie, ala Graham, Watts, Briscoes, etc., shared bookings (JCP), normal NWA talent sharing, and friendly collaborations (AWA, Japan, WWF). I liked the main GA/FLA/Mid-Atlanitc late 70s-early 80's roster the best, but enjoyed seeing Backlund or Bockwinkel pop in on occasion. Of course Harley was a treat too, during his reign, cause you really didn't get to see him that much for long stretches. And even though GCW is thought of as Georgia wrestling, the southern half of the state was not run by GCW, but Fred Ward promotions. He ran Columbus and Macon and spot shows all around. Of course they shared talent with GCW and maybe even relied on GCW booking at some point. I think Savannah went from GCW to Mid-Atlantic promotion or maybe even back and forth. I don't really know. Be an interesting research there.
Started watching Georgia Championship Wrestling in 1977 ‘Tony Atlas, Tommy Rich, Mr Wrestling Tim Woods, and Mr Wrestling 2.. You wanna talk about great times man it got no better, than watching GCW on the superstation Saturday evening and Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling (JCP) on Saturday morning.
I'm from Georgia ,my father would go in the late seventies to the GCW shows in the Cobb Civic Center the wrestlers he would always talk about was Abdullah the Butcher or Andre the Giant, Dusty Rhodes... his favorite wrestler was Mr Wrestling number 2, he always used to talk about how Mr Wrestling number 2 wrestled Andre the Giant he gave him a run for his money he said he had the knee lift as a finishing move. They also said he used to go with an old lady and she would get so angry about the bad guys she literally wanted to fight them
I was 10 years old in Augusta Georgia in 1983. And I was the biggest wrestling fan! To me that was the very best of what wrestling had to offer. And also, wrestling its Pinnacle at that point
I got to attend two GCW shows at Hara Arena in Dayton in the early '80's. Many years later, living in NC, I found myself frequently running into a retired Ivan Koloff. It was a little strange to see The Russian Bear grocery shopping after witnessing him many years before whipping the hell out of Butch Reed with a thick chain. Life is weird...
I can remember as a kid my dad turning me on to gcw mid-south wrestling. Wwf was the show we watched when nothing else was on. Gcw mid-south was the show we waited all week to watch. And we lived in Ohio. Great video as always Dave.
Being in Air Force tech school in an area where there was no active wrestling promotion, the presence of GCW on cable is what made me a wrestling fan again. I'd watched Wrestling at the Chase in high school growing up near St. Louis, but then the station changed the show to a timeslot that made it impossible to watch in pre-VCR days.
I grew up in Atlanta watching GCW. It was on Saturday night on WTCG and it was spaghetti night. It was a very cool station. I remember late at night they would show Bull fights till the bull died. They would also show taekwando fights
Yep, when we got cable in the early eighties I was happy when I found WTBS. I got to see some of the wrestlers I only read about and saw in those apter magazines.
There were three wrestling shows on in the mid to late 70s where i was at ... 1. was Big Time wrestling on local TV - it was NWA stars the big feud was Sheik vs Bobo Brazil - Harley Race and Jack Briscoe were champs then . #2. was when you could get Wisconsin station and All-Star wrestling was on Saturday nights at 11pm.. AWA stars - the feud was Crusher vs Super Destroyer . Verne Gagne was champ a long time followed by Nick Bockwinkle. 3. was Georgia Championship wrestling on WTCG out of Atlanta... feud was Dusty Rhodes vs Ole' Anderson - Loved that show ... Gordon was a good announcer that always hyped the latest stars.
My 2 favorite wrestling quotes of all time..."It's PANDEMONIUM!!!!" and "WoopWoopWOW!!!!!" - Gordon Solie The best memories with my dad are watching GCW and Gordon Solie made it sell.
Random thought I had while watching this video. I would love a video where you outline how you would run a promotion. What nights it would air, how many PPV's, studio vs arena, etc. With your breadth of knowledge of wrestling federations, I imagine you've thought of this before and it would be a fascinating video.
After watching, my few notes....one more name that you have to mention that was synonymous with GCW is Tommy "Wildfire" Rich. 2nd, and to my understanding, it wasn't that Ole Anderson was excluded from the WWE Hall of Fame with the 4 Horseman as he had a chance to be inducted, it was more so that Ole excluded himself and honestly after everything that went down, one can't blame him. Competition can be so cruel so Vince would have really had to go out of his way to make it right for Ole to accept. #randomthoughts
Anytime I do these history videos, naturally I am not going to mention everything. I did have a slight bit on Tommy Rich, especially since there persists the debate on whether or not he was actually good for the promotion. But I didn't want to get into it because I was not looking to start any Wildfires in the comment section. (pun intended) Also, you are not the first to hear it that way, with the Ole thing. I specifically said he wasn't included. Meaning he wasn't there. Not excluded. I see now that it's an easy interpretation to make, but I was just trying to say that he was not present during the induction is all
Wow this goes back a long way i remember watching these and the Great Gordon Solie , This is when wrestling was wrestling not that crap from the WWE we have now
i lived indiana, and only got see this at my grandmas who had tbs channel .. it was how i discovered the freebirds, von erichs, missing link, and my favorite the great kabuki..and others... i always liked it much better than the wwf BS
I don't know when it was that I started watching wrestling but I do remember Paul Jones. I also remember spending many Friday nights at the Atlanta City Auditorium. Plenty of Tuesdays in the summer at the Sports arena on Chester Ave. As well at the Lakewood fairgrounds. Georgia wrestling was good before the 1990s.
For a few years Tommy 'Wildfire' Rich was far and away the most well known and popular wrestler in the country. If only they had the vision to capitalize, WWF would have had a much harder time taking complete control.
I remember seeing matches from MSG. But then, they had wrestling the way we here were used to watching. What with Backlund, Dusty, Tony Garea and Rick Martel. But after that timeframe, it because absolute dung. For me, I was lucky to see Tri-State Championship Wrestling (pre-cursor to Watts' Mid-South), Georgia, World Class, and Southwest Champ. Wrestling. Those shows didn't have the gimmicks the WWF needed. Just tough matches, even violent, and solid booking. Oh, and it's about time you gave Inigo Montoya some credit where credit was due, Dave.
Growing up in the 80s, Georgia was number two for me behind Mid South. If those were the only two wrestling leagues that ever existed, I could easily be satisfied never wanting more. By the way, World Class was a distant third.
I remember watching Georgia Championship Wrestling on Channel 68,on Wednesday's. I found out about it a year before they turned into World Championship Wrestling. Ya gotta respect someone with the balls Vince has. He didn't do one thing that he promised Ted Turner in their agreement,the ratings were in the toilet,and he is mad when Ted Turner wants out of the deal? lol
@@alexanderarce3341 No lol Dave and I are old heads. Years and years ago 1985 around there,before it was Home Shopping Network Home Shopping Network was a UHF Channel. I forgot what it was called. Every weekday they would have a different NWA Territory. Georgia Championship Wrestling was on Wednesday.
I SO HATED when Vince McMahon took over the WCW air time, "Black Saturday," and then broadcasted old matches of wrestlers that weren't even wrestling anymore from some 10 years ago at that time, was pathetic ‼️
