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In the world of Pro Wrestling, nostalgia has become en vogue. Whether that is due to the booking of the current product not being up to par or people getting older and thus looking back fondly on their childhood memories is up for debate. Possibly it’s a little of both, but one thing is for sure, nostalgia is in whereas 10 years ago, it was laughed at and used as a criticism by at least one organization that emphasizes it heavily now.
This week, I finally sat down and watched a lot of the stuff I had recorded from the first two months I had WWE 24/7. What I realized in doing so is some of the stuff we have grown so nostalgic for wasn’t that good at all. I watched the Boston Garden house show from December 6, 1986 and it featured the likes of SD Jones, Iron Mike Sharpe, Steve Lombardi, Jimmy Jack Funk, Dick Slater, and the now jobbing Pedro Morales. Out of 10 matches, only 3-4 had mid card/main eventers on both sides of the ring and even 2 of those weren’t exactly setting the world on fire. I personally went to some B and C WWF house shows in the 80’s and I don’t remember cards like this. It was especially odd seeing as how they were televising this show on NESN. But I digress, watching this show for 2 plus hours was almost as bad as watching paint dry, the only excitement was since I didn’t know who was wrestling, finding out when they came to the ring.
Also in the not very good category there was Buried Alive 96, Madison Square Garden house show from 11/30/91, and the Monday Night Wars from September 16, 1996. I know most wrestling fans look back at the Monday Night Wars fondly, but what some may have forgotten is how bad the WWF was in 1996, and also how WCW in order to fill two hours of time would throw out matches that were just…well…there. This was also one of the brief points in WCW where it seemed like the nWo was just adding members for the sake of adding members. Also going on was the fake Sting/real Sting debacle that to this day I am confused on how it supposedly fooled anyone in WCW, and where did the nWo get the Sting voice recording from anyway?!
Over on Raw, this was the week prior to what was actually a very good In Your House pay per view, “Mind Games.†But the matches on this show ranged from good to terrible and featured The Smoking Gunns, Sultan, Jake Roberts, Bob Holly, Alex Porteau, and Farooq. Also during the show, Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross argued about next week’s return of “Diesel†and “Razor Ramon.†No, everything we think back now to remember isn’t as great as we think.
There were however, some things I did really enjoy. Starrcade '85 was one of those. Seeing how the NWA was the originator of closed circuit shows originating from two locations before the WWF attempted three the following April. I wonder now if this had any effect on Vince trying it, feeling if Crockett could pull it off, he could do better. But again, there was a drawback to watching this show. Many people, me included always think back on the NWA as longer matches, no nonsense wrestling, etc. There was not a single match on this show that didn’t have either a stipulation or title match to it in some form or fashion. A Mexican Death match between Manny Fernandez and Abdullah the Butcher ended when you climbed a pole and retrieved a sombrero!! And match time? Because there were so many over the three hour show, I don’t believe any of them lasted 20 minutes.
The other things I enjoyed were the studio shows, Prime Time Wrestling and World Championship Wrestling. I feel like WWF misses the boat by not having a show in a similar format to Prime Time with two announcers that have good chemistry and make a show entertaining. So what if you had seen all the matches that aired on PTW before? You got to watch two hours of Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon argue. That made the show worth watching alone! Two of the Prime Time Wrestling shows I watched were building towards Wrestlemania III, so not only were Monsoon and Heenan arguing as usual, you also had Heenan proclaiming Andre the Giant the next WWF Champion and Monsoon trying to bring him back down to earth.
The other of the aforementioned shows, World Championship Wrestling I did in a different way. Last night (Saturday night), when I got home from church, I popped in the April 6, 1985 edition of the show. I was about an hour off it’s original timeslot, but just watching this show on the day and close to the same time it aired 21 years ago was really a special feeling. There was nothing overly special about the show that made it any different than the others in that era; Arn Anderson faced Manny Fernandez in the main event of the show. There was also Tully Blanchard, Dusty Rhodes, Jimmy Valiant, the Barbarian, Billy Graham, Buddy Landell, and a host of jobbers from start to finish.
Back when this and the other shows aired, they were just there. It was normal to see them on Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning, or Sunday evening. It was normal to see Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan on that little set arguing about whatever. Looking back now, it seems wrestling has lost this and may never get it back. I don’t know if there is an answer to this plight either. I have long thought the syndicated shows should have had more effort put into them, make them must see shows, and the fans would call their local TV stations and beg them to air it.
I know mindsets, and the audience has changed. Monday nights is now destination night for wrestling, but I swear it didn’t have to be. What if WCW had not turned WCW Saturday night into a joke? What if they and WWE had kept their syndicated shows as something to actually watch? What if WWE turned AM Raw into a third meaningful show for the brand? If all these things had/did happen, you could turn Smackdown which they view as a B brand anyway, into a sort of Prime Time Wrestling show looking back on the week that was and preparing everyone for the next week's editions of the syndicated shows, AM Raw or whatever it could be called, and culminating in Monday Night Raw. But then again, what do I know?!
