Jim Cornette on What If Bill Watts Teamed With Ted Turner During Vince McMahon's National Expansion
Вставка
- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Listen to the Jim Cornette Experience each Thursday and Jim Cornette's Drive Thru each Monday on iTunes, Stitcher, Podcast Addict, iHeartRadio, and everywhere else podcasts are available!
Visit JimCornette.com for the latest Jim Cornette news and Cornette's Collectables merchandise!
Time travel device needed.
Would love to have seen Vince McMahon deal with Cowboy Bill Watts.
Joseph Kerlegon Jr. Vince did deal with him. Fired his Ass.
Vince would have “No chance”
Watts was McMahon's bitch.
@@JJMcHurt Vince would have squashed him
The Cowboy was The Man!!
We wouldn't have gotten the NWO angle with a Watts/Turner regime in WCW though.
Watts vs McMahon, wow, I'd loved to had seen this.
McMahon would have still won. One of Watts' brilliant ideas was to ban the wrestlers from going to the top rope/top rope moves in WCW. Watts' had success but I feel people give him too much credit. He was too old school for his own good at a time where Vince was rapidly expanding and doing newer things to an ever growing audience. Having turner would have slowed it down but the personalities of the WWF would have still won over Watts' Rasslin mentality. Watts' ruled with an Iron Hand and many wrestlers who worked for him didn't like him. It wouldn't have lasted very long.
Pikkon89 This is long, so if you don't want to read it, it's all good. Plus this is just my personal opinion on the subject of WCW during the Bill Watts era of WCW as well as WCW before the Hogan/Bischoff regime. I agree that by 1992, Watts was a little behind the times. The top rope rule was odd, especially since guys like Brian Pillman, Ricky Steamboat, Jushin Liger ETC were all becoming big pieces with WCW (Liger was part time in WCW but when he was there........I'm sure we all know his impact). So yeah, I agree on things like that Watts was behind the times on. But Watts had some good ideas there too, such as moving as far away as possible from the Jim Herd's "WWF Junior style product". Southern style pro wrestling was still really popular then. And Watts pushed Rick Rude, Vader, Sting, Ron Simmons, Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Steve Austin, Dustin Rhodes as his top guys. Bill Watts established the working deal with New Japan, which also lead, albeit temporarily, to WCW rejoining the NWA which New Japan was currently a member of at the time. That brought in the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and NWA World Tag Team Championship, as well as New Japan Pro Wrestling stars such as Great Muta, Hiroshi Hase, Masa Chono, Jushin Liger ETC. He also brought in All Japan Pro Wrestling stars Stan Hansen and the Miracle Violence Connection (Steve Williams and Terry Gordy). Which their matches with the Steiner Brothers were dream matches to me. Watts did shit on The Steiner Brothers which lead to them jumping to the WWF, which was one of the worst moves in pro wrestling. They were arguably the best tag team in the world at that time. He cut Jake Roberts contract from being 3.5 million to 300 grand. Which at the time seems stupid as hell since Jake Roberts was arguably the best pure heel in wrestling. He had been doing some of the best stuff of his career as far as promos, ring psychology and in ring story telling goes. Plus his actual in ring work was still good as well. But in hindsight, Watts may have saved WCW millions as that was the time when Jake Roberts started to hit rock bottom in regards to his drug and alcohol use. Plus Watts just brought in so much great talent, both veterans and future talent. Established veterans like Rick Rude, Abdullah the Butcher, The Barbarian, Paul Orndorff, Bobby Eaton, Nikita Koloff, Ricky Steamboat, Davey Boy Smith, Steve Williams, Terry Gordy, Stan Hansen ETC. Plus he either brought in OR gave major pushes to future stars such as Ron Simmons, Cactus Jack, Dustin Rhodes, Big Van Vader, Great Muta, 2 Cold Scorpio, Shane Douglas, Steve Austin, Steven Regal, Masa Chono, Hiroshi Hase, Jushin Liger plus more I can't remember. I know he's not responsible for all the good things that occurred in between the post Dusty Rhodes/Ole Anderson booked, Ric Flair dominated era and the pre Eric Bischoff/Hulk Hogan era of 1991-1994. But he had a large impact on that era both positive and negative. And in my opinion the positive outweighed the negative because of all the great talent that was in WCW during that time. I thought that era was extremely underrated....I mean Rick Rude, Vader, Cactus Jack, The Steiner Brothers, the Hollywood Blondes, 2 Cold Scorpio, Jushin Liger, Ricky Steamboat....the return of the NWA.....a WCW/NJPW working deal.....the beginning of the light heavyweight division....a mixture of old school southern and modern pro wrestling that focused on wrestling over spectacle. Sorry about this novel. I had a lot to say...and this is just MY PERSONAL OPINION.
Dave S You're a very dedicated wrestling fan.
DarksaberForce I just finished working on a degree the last 2 years. So i wasn't employed during that time since i had some extra school loan loot to cover bills. So all I've done the last 2 years is work on this degree online and get caught up on pro wrestling. Lol.
Clifton Smith Watts, went and worked for Vince in late 94,until oct of 95, Vince loved Watts Ideas, oldschool is cool.
DAMN!!! I never knew that! Turner being a PARTNER (providing the TV outlet, financial backing to grow the company) while Watts ran the wrestling side would have been a IDEAL SETUP!!! It's the type of deal that JCP even would have benefited from if they could have got it. INSTEAD of having to sell the whole damn thing to Turner. And with Turner having that financial interest in Mid South as an ACTUAL PARTNER, he would have been on top of EVERY MOVE Vince would have tried to make.
In a PERFECT WORLD, Mid South becomes the UWF still with the Watts-Turner duo thriving! And when JCP gets in financial trouble, JCP SELLS to Watts-Turner! And from there, they keep the promotions separate BUT do talent trades and some timely cross promotional angles. With a big Super Bowl type of event once a year. This was the idea JR pitched to Crockett when they were trying to sell UWF to Crockett. But Crockett didn't wanna listen.
And it would be VITAL for Turner to be hands on BIG TIME to grow the product from a marketing standpoint. Make them the Celtics and Lakers to Vince's Harlem Globetrotter stuff. All entities are household mainstream names. BUT the Celtics and Lakers played REAL COMPETITIVE BASKETBALL! While the Globetrotters had a lot of clown stuff MIXED in with the sport. BUT once again, Turner would need to be VERY COMMITTED to growing the product himself! While Watts worked his magic with 100% autonomy on the wrestling side!!!
Starrcade as a JCP-UWF crossover sounds badass. But without buying Florida and the UWF I don’t know if Crockett ever gets those financial problems, so maybe with only Crockett and Watts in that entire mid-Atlantic-southeastern-mid-western corridor they could still have worked out talent exchanges and use the Starrcade brand for the crossover.
I miss Mid South Wrestling ☹️
If Bill Watts did team up with Ted Turner, I do honestly wonder how long such an impact of that relationship on the business would have been sustained in light of the toll the business was having not only on Watts, but also on Jim Ross. Having read most of Jim Ross' book, it sure sounded like the long hours put into the business working with Watts in the mid 1980s was having an effect on him personally. And Watts was burned out by the time he sold the UWF to Jim Crockett. If the Watts/Turner partnership happened, and if Ross and Watts were able to develop an infrastructure of additional staff much like Vince McMahon was doing (all primarily under the direction of Watts), I'm sure that would help.
Watts was burned out, no doubt, because JCP did an end run around him-then taking Midsouth/UWF national was just too big of a lift
Crusader7077 add Jim Crockett with Bill Watts as the head bookers, creative and producers of WCW!!!
The business would have been in better hands. That much we now know.
@@MeMe-td1ye he was the first promotor to put the world title on a black man. Simmons over Vader.
Watts was incompetent and the business had passed him by a decade before. The Rock N Roll Express literally saved his company and he hated them for it.
I think Vince still would have one. The key to WWE''s 1980's boom period was that instead of being the best wrestling product, Vince turned them into a bona fide pop culture fad which appealed to some wrestling fans plus a lot of people who previously couldn't have cared less about wrestling. and also made them a more appealing product for things like television advertisers and 3rd party licensees
That's why Vince has always said he's not in the wrestling business, but the entertainment business and why so many in the wrestling world don't get what he was trying to do. He was pursuing an entirely different business model than everybody else in the industry.
@Smith Hart It's the same thing. If you're going to get that hung up on the original name, you might as well insist on WWWF.
Mc mahon made wrestling into shit
Mc mahon is wrong I Hate WWE
Vince also had NY and LA, the 2 entertainment hubs, which gave him easier access to late nite talk shows like Letterman and Carson, his boys getting on Saturday Night Live, the A-Team, etc. As early as 1985, when the only wrestling on my local TV was the AWA and Stampede, I knew more about Vince's roster than Gagne's because of Hogan's saturday morning cartoon and of course Saturday Night's Main Event replacing SNL once a month. By the time the WWF took over the AWA's time slot in 1986, I felt like I was finally watching a major league promotion.
Agree Vince would still have won. His strategy was to create a product that appealed to as many people as possible unlike Crockett and Watts who wanted to keep their promotions traditional wrestling which was great but was never going to have as many fans as the WWF.
Ted Turner should have gave the keys to WCW to Bill Watts & Jim Crockett. Period.
Bill Watts is and was out of touch.
CORRECT
Watts & Turner Could Have Been the Original "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" ... They Would've Also Had a Hot, Blond Named "Missy" in Tow, as Well
Bullshit. Watts was like Verne by that time. His wrestling mind was not keeping up with the times. He came to WCW and made all these demands about the mats at ringside,pushed his weight around and alienated the fans and the boys. Nobody cared if they had a few safety items at ringside. In fact, they were glad they were there another thing he tried to do was reinstate the top rope rule which was never going to happen because pandoras box had been opened. We weren't stupid ass Oklahomans who go noodlin every weekend to get scars from a catfish biting us masacisticly. We were Mid Atlantic folk who liked our violent sport to make better sense than that.
It would have started Strong. Then
Blown up .
Turner’s money,Watts wrestling knowledge and Bischoff’s production skills.
thalrg22
.....Do we still keep the ban on moves from the top turnbuckle and have to watch Eric Watts?
Just for guys over 300 lbs. who want to fly around like Peter Pan even though they're over 300lbs.
thalrg22 Better yet, Turner's money, Watts wrestling knowledge and Watts production skills. Nitro's production value might've been higher, but that doesn't really correlate to skill. That's much more a money thing.
Coachg replace Eric Bishoff with Jim Crockett & Verne Gange
@@Mr.Majestic77 Verne. Another old man.
Not sure how it wouldve ended. But that wouldve been an interesting scenario.
imagine Mid South and Championship Wrestling from Florida on TBS
Watts would of been like Vince. Out of touch.
Why did mid south wrestling not continue on tbs if the ratings were good?
What could have been.
Gotta get ready for the war - Junk Yard Dog
but he was the booker in wcw in the 1990s and he failed right?? he didnt seem to care so why would you think he would be different in the 80s
not to start an argument but i didnt see any difference in turners wrestling than the wwf style by the 90s
Bill Watts would have fought and lost. Corny and Last are delusional here
Watts would have flamed out the same way he did when he DID work for Turner in the 90s. He was a terrible businessman, the business passed him by a decade before, and nobody in the back respected him. Which is also why his UWF flamed out spectacularly. (Spare me the "oil crash" excuse, he failed because he wasn't paying anyone and his smark darling roster wasn't drawing ANYWHERE.)
FALSE WRONG ON ALL ACCOUNTS
DELETE THIS YIU SOUND DELUSIONAL
It's absolutely fascinating how seriously people on the inside took a business that was looked so down upon by the general public as a lowbrow form of entertainment.
Don’t underestimate McMahon. imo he’d still win the war
After reading so many of the comments on this vid about how no one could compete with vince, it's obvious why no one could. he destroyed kayfabe and turned the business into a clown/cartoon show. it instantly killed the "realism" angle that the NWA had been built on and created a loyal fanbase. vince got on national tv and said he is not going to insult your intelligence, then makes his talent act like chickens and all the other dumb shit. what does show you about his "character?'
Vonce would still have been on top just face it smh.
Never would have happen .Watts took over made a lot of cash. Watts Thinking was anqunted for the business.
If Watts knew how to hit back against Vince, beat Vince, he would have done it. He would have had his own national TV. He didn't know how to do it. He didn't know how to beat Vince. That's the reality.
but he put on good tv....well, not in wcw, but in mid south ,he did
fjvideo
You literally listened to nothing in this video.
Sorry, that came out a bit too mean.
They’re talking about what COULD/MIGHT have happened, if Watts got Jim Crockett’s spot with Ted Turner.
Without cable, there was no chance of anyone beating the WWF, at the time.
But, if Bill Watts had been in position, instead of Jim Crockett Promotions, there is very little doubt that Watts would have done things very differently, and probably not have gone bankrupt, like Crockett did, and been forced to sell to TBS.
With Turner’s money behind him, and Watts in from the beginning, Vince McMahon and the WWF wouldn’t have had the 5 or 6 year head-start, that WCW gave them, from the TBS takeover, to 95 or 96, when WCW started beating WWF in the ratings.
Bill Watts would have also kept the products different, giving wrestling fans a choice of what style to watch, instead of Jim Herd, and the morons that followed him, believing they had to copy WWF’s product, if they wanted to compete.
Despite WCW’s original fan base being almost polar opposite, to what the WWF were doing.
If the failure of WCW wasn’t proof enough, TNA confirmed it later on, when they tried to go down the “Sports Entertainment” route: you can’t do Sports Entertainment better than Vince, so you should do something else instead.
What they (both WCW & TNA) failed to realise, was: Why would people watch a bad copy of Sports Entertainment, when they can watch the real thing, done properly by the WWF/E!?
Answer: they wouldn’t.
Whether or not Bill Watts teaming with Turner and TBS would have damaged the WWF/E, in any meaningful way, is debatable.
But, would/could he have done better than the TBS-owned WCW?
Absolutely, he could have: for all the reasons Jim and Brian talked about here, as well as many other reasons.
Like not employing Jim Herd, who, had genius ideas like: the Ding Dongs, retiring Terry Funk, turning Ric Flair into a fucking gladiator called Spartacus, and many other real “winners”, that got WCW off to such terrible start.
But, would a Bill Watts-run wrestling company, have out fought Vince?
Who knows!
But jeez, it would have been a damn interesting battle!
All the best.
Two things would have been required to beat Vince. First, a plan to make a better wrestling product. Second, the ability to get the resources to carry out that plan.
Let's be honest, with a few exceptions (like Steamboat v Savage) the in-ring product of the WWF in the late 80s and early 90s was terrible. It wouldn't be hard to produce better wrestling. Hell if Ted Turner's WCW had barely adequate management instead of the Jim Herd shitshow, they would have wiped the floor with Vince McMahon's toupee.
But Watts didn't get the resources to go national. The point of this video that if Watts did, he would have made a better product than Vince. It's just a matter of how you view the issue. If knowing how to make a good wrestling product and getting the resources to do it are two different things, or two parts of the same thing. Six, or half dozen.
Now if you think Watts couldn't make a better wrestling product even if he got the resources to do it, you're entitled to your opinion even if it's wrong.
@@ThisCharmingMan1984 ALL FACTS
It doesn't matter who teamed up with Ted Turner, Vince McMahon had something no one else had in the wrestling business, miss Elizabeth, that's why Crockett and all the other promoters failed,
Brian quit daydreaming about someone beating the wwf/wwe it didnt happen bro
ikr he is such a baby vince won dude live with it
God forbid they explore scenarios that make for an interesting podcast.
What are you talking about Nic? Mister Vintage has the most popular Podcast ever. "This is Reality" It has seven billion subscribers.
ShowtimeDr, that was sarcasm. I'm defending this topic because I found it interesting.
These guys forget there is a World outside USA that want Sports Entertainment and would totally feel bored with southern pro wrestling...WWF willingness to go abroad "educated" (with exception of countries like UK and Germany) that WWF product is what pro wrestling was supposed to be. The bigger than life characters...and so on.
Name one country that never ad pro wrestling before WWE.
There's just so much wrong here!
Wait... what? I would say the UWF style is still a whole hell of a lot closer to the Japanese strong style that's so en vogue these days than anything the WWF ever put out. And with the exception of Hulk Hogan in his early days (when he actually wrestled) it sure seemed like WCW's guys were a lot more over when they went to Japan when anyone from the WWF did.