Good morning and welcome back after the holiday weekend! I hope you had a safe and enjoyable holiday celebrating America and the United States’ birthday.
As I have mentioned on my various social media channels, I would ask you at this time to join your prayers with mine for the people in the Hill Country of Central Texas who are going through these terrible floods and the aftermath of their damage. They need whatever help we can provide, but right now the support of prayer is something we can all do together until we hear more about what they need.
Thank you for that.
In yesterday’s Chronicle I analyzed Jim Crockett Promotions first Great American Bash event and their strategy leading up to it. Today, we have an important title change in Baltimore on the same day for the WWF as the Bash and I will take a look at the WWF strategy for the wrestling war at this time in 1985 and how that is shaping up with some notes on the other territories as well.
July 7th in the Time Tunnel:
Happy Birthday to those who have passed on and to those great wrestlers still with us:
In Memoriam:
John Cazana 1913
Sandor Kovacs 1920
Alfonso Lamamie de Clairac\Hercules Cortez 1932
Eddie Don Lee Whittler\Smasher Sloan 1935
Happy Birthday:
(none)
RIP Memorial: We stop & remember those who have passed on this day and gave themselves to the business for us, the fans. We salute you and thank you.
Henri Deglane 7-7-1975 at the age of 73
Richard Bryant\Chief Little Eagle 7-7-1990 at the age of 55
Chris Romero\Chris Youngblood 7-7-2021 at the age of 55
Select Pro Wrestling Time Tunnel Match and Event Flashbacks
Debuts:
Nancy Daus Sullivan Benoit\Fallen Angel\Woman 7-7-1984
40-Year Flashback:
7-6-1985: Tito Santana defeated Greg Valentine (CH) for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Title in a Steel Cage Match at the Civic Center in Baltimore, Maryland drawing 13,300 in attendance
Pictured: Tito Santana WWF intercontinental Champion 1985
During this period of national expansion for wrestling promotions, the lines across the country are being drawn in a nationwide wrestling war, just like you would find in a real military battle. The Northeastern part of the US remained firmly in the hands of the WWF, while the Carolinas and parts of the South and Midwest were in the hands of Crockett. East Texas belonged to World Class, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Houston belonged to Mid-South Wrestling, the Memphis circuit belonged to Jerry Jarrett, Alabama was controlled by Ron Fuller and partners, and Kansas City was in the hands of Harley Race, Bob Giegel and partners. The AWA, the Midwest, the West and their Winnipeg, Canada markets are under direct attack from WWF. In terms of Jerry Jarrett's territory, the WWF ran Jarrett's regular Tuesday night town of Louisville, Kentucky on June 15th of 1985 and drew 500 fans, the Memphis circuit fans were not buying it after years and years of weekly southern wrestling in their town.
To give you an idea about the AWA's June of 1985, they ran St. Paul, Minnesota on June 9th, usually it's second strongest city behind Minneapolis next door, but only drew 1,500 attendance, its lowest crowd since the AWA was founded in the early 1960s. Milwaukee on June 30th drew 2,848. Chicago was still drawing decently on June 21st at the Rosemont Horizon had 4,000 As Sgt Slaughter defeated Larry Zbyszko for the AWA Americas Title and Rick Martel, the AWA World Champ turned back the challenge of Michael Hayes. Salt Lake City had 4,043 on June 7th had Martel defend against longtime AWA veteran Billy Robinson.
St. Louis is up for grabs, WWF has been running regularly there since the beginning of 1984 and Jim Crockett Promotions is cooperating with the Central States partners to try to keep running it as well, but the battle for St Louis for slowly going to WWF and for the NWA cooperative partnership it is not going well. Which is an important point at this stage of the wrestling evolution, the NWA affiliates, which were dwindling, still had the old NWA type mindset, they could see Jim Crockett, Jr's company was hot and growing in the television power and viewers over a larger swath of the country and they wanted some of the top talent that Crockett was adding to the roster, but they didn't want to relinquish any control of their towns. Not that Crockett had the infrastructure to manage a larger promotional base, it did not, but the fact remains that Race and Geigel, among others, wanted Crockett to come help keep the WWF out with talent and matchups for cards, but they wanted to stay in control, which caused confusion on communication with building managers and logistics.
Vince McMahon, running his company like the CEO of a Fortune 500 organization had added talent to his team with the purchase of Georgia Championship Wrestling the year before. He already had George Scott as his booker and director of creative, who had many Jim Crockett and NWA talent connections, which had gotten him talent like Roddy Piper, Ricky Steamboat and Greg Valentine. With the Georgia purchase, he had Jim Barnett, who went back to the late 1940s in relationships with television executives and station managers to handle some of his syndicated clearance issues as well as building managers in the Midwest and West. Jack and Jerry Brisco had come on as a wrestling tag team, but Jack had suddenly retired, and Vince had retained Jerry Brisco to handle building managers and shows in the state of Florida where Jerry had longstanding relationships.
As I said, the battlelines for this war were forming and Vince was playing a new business model game. And even though Crockett had gotten the WTBS time slot and had drawn such a huge crowd and box office at the first Great American Bash, they and the other wrestling offices were still playing the old wrestling game.
Pictured: Greg Valentine WWF Intercontinental Champion 1985
As far as this match is concerned, this was a great program for the WWF at the time. Valentine and Santana matched up great with each other and could draw money as well. Even though they were on this card with Hulk Hogan defending the WWF World Title against Roddy Piper in a double count out finish, Greg and Tito were the main event on the show. That could have been due to the logistics of setting up and tearing down the cage for the match, but still, they had drawn money on their own around the IC title on previous occasions without Hogan on the card. This feud was a long one, especially for this era of WWF.
Tito had the title first, beating Don Muraco on February 11th, 1984, at the Boston Garden and he held it for 226 days before losing it to Valentine at the Maple Leaf Garden show in London, Ontario on September 24th, 1984. Valentine had been the champion with Tito in returns for the title for an amazing 285 days before this match in Baltimore. After more returns to finish up this series between the two, the management of WWF would be getting Randy Savage, a newcomer to the company ready for a program with Santana and Valentine would move on to other things later in the year. Also on this show, Bob Orton, Jr defeated Tony Atlas, Pedro Morales defeated Steve Lombardi, The Killer Bees beat Moondog Spot & Berry Orton. In the second match on the card, Terry Funk defeated Rick McGraw and, in the opener, Tony Garea beat Dr. X.
There were two other WWF cards running on this night as well, and this would have been the A show.
On the WWF B-Show, it was in Omaha, Nebraska, a long time AWA town with the US Express (Windham and Rotundo) defending the WWF World Tag belts against The Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff. Amazing when you consider the undercard, Junkyard Dog beat Johnny Valiant, George Wells beat The Spider, Dynamite Kid defeated Les Thornton in a match I would have wanted to see, Davey Boy Smith beat Rene Goulet and Mad Dog Vachon defeated The Terminator. Just 20 years before in the mid-1960s, Vachon had been AWA World Champion in this very town, which is why he's on this card.
The WWF C-Show was in the battleground town of Cleveland, Ohio which was being fought over between the C-Lineup of the WWF and the B-Lineup of Jim Crockett Promotions. On this date, Paul Orndorff, Ricky Steamboat & George Steele defeated Big John Studd, The Missing Link & Bobby Heenan in a 6-man tag on top. Notice anything about the talent being used here? Pretty smart by the WWF's booker, George Scott, who booked the Crockett Territory from 1973 to 1980 then Georgia from 1980 to 1981 including these northern towns for Georgia Championship Wrestling like Cleveland, just 5 years prior. Swede Hanson, a JCP veteran, still working here in 1985 beat Jimmy Jackson. Ivan Putski beat Don Muraco, Randy Savage is on the show beating Mr. Wrestling #2, formerly Georgia's biggest drawing card. Lanny Poffo beat Charlie Fulton and in the opening match, SD Jones and Tiger Chung Lee went to a time limit draw just like in the old NWA days in what you would see in the opening match.
Professional Wrestling to establish the night.
Hopefully you can see what the WWF is trying to do here in a town they are fighting Crockett over, using former Crockett and Georgia stars the fans are familiar with and doing more wrestling on the show. Cleveland was on Crockett's B-Show loop once a month in the middle of the month, so they were here on June 15th and will return on July 13th, so the shows for the two groups were being spaced out so the fans didn't have to choose which to go to, as long as they could afford it.
June of 1985: Ken Patera and Masa Saito are convicted of battery of a police officer and sentenced to two years in prison.
The reason I am putting this court verdict into the newsletter today is an example of some of the old wrestling mentality still remaining. Even though Vince McMahon was evolving in this thinking about the wrestling business changing in the mid-1980s, he was still doing some old wrestling promoter stuff like advertising Ken Patera for shows he was always certain he wasn't going to be able to appear because of this court ruling. The same with Verne Gagne in the AWA with Saito, who he was still advertising to appear at the June 22nd Meadowlands show. It's important to remember that the thinking and the action is pro wrestling were an evolution, not an overnight complete change, even though it may have seemed so.
One Thing I Learned Today About Pro Wrestling History
Henri Deglane defeated Ed Strangler Lewis by DQ for the AWA Heavyweight Title in Montreal, Canada on May 4th, 1931. He lost the title to Ed Don George in Boston, Massachusetts on February 9th, 1933.
Thank You for Reading
I'm Tony Richards, Pro Wrestling Historian, Author and Storyteller. I share pro wrestling historical items in each issue of the Time Tunnel Pro Wrestling History Newsletter. Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my information on select events, matches and insights, please share it with folks you think might like to be a subscriber!
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