Hi, Scott, had a quick question for you - I've been watching a lot of the old Wrestling Challenges lately; when I was really little, I would catch these every Saturday, but they were mostly squash matches, and you were lucky if you got a few WWF regular guys facing each other. My question is how were these old shows set up? They couldn't possibly have expected a crowd to pay for a few hours of squash matches, right? Did they just snip a handful of matches for TV but actually have some competitive matches for the live crowd? Thanks!
Scott
It makes me feel very old that there are people writing me who have no memory of the hell that TV tapings used to be.
They in fact did expect a crowd to pay for a few hours of squash matches, often up to five hours of squash matches in fact. Generally you'd get one or two dark matches to start with local guys (like today), then up to four hours straight of TV tapings, sometimes broken up by COLISEUM EXCLUSIVES like IRS v. Jim Duggan or Berzerker v. Davey Boy Smith, then a quickie main event for the crowd with a big star and usually a DQ finish or the good guy winning a fast match to send the crowd home happy. It was fucking AWFUL, I'm not gonna lie to you. By the fourth hour you'd have to make your own entertainment. If you were lucky to get a Superstars taping then at least you'd get the bigger stars and sometimes even a Saturday Night's Main Event show taped too, but god help if you if got the Wrestling Challenge tapings.
What a lot of newer fans don't understand is how the advent of new technologies in the last twenty years or so has rendered the old models obsolete. In an era when viewing options were still quite limited on television, the promotion could afford to skate by without having main event guys working against each other every week. The business model was designed around a combination of pay per view buys and live event gates; television, with the exception of SNME and the occasional high-profile Superstars angle was an ancillary player in all of this.
ReplyDeleteAs cable grew and the internet took off though, people had a lot more viewing options, and weren't as dependent on the WWF for entertainment as they were five or six years previous. That, coupled with the Monday Night Wars forever killed the value of the live event, and installed a "must go big every week" mentality that is now what you see on television every week. Had Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan wrestled for the WWF Championship at a Superstars event instead of WrestleMania V, people would have collectively lost their shit. And yet that's exactly the same type of set up we had tonight: the invincible superman challenger versus the vulnerable, under-appreciated champion. And we'll probably get it 500 times more.
Here's an example from 1985:
ReplyDeleteChampionship Wrestling taping:All-American Wrestling - 6/23/85: B. Brian Blair won a $10,000 battle royal by last eliminating Bret Hart at 10:24; other participants included: Big John Studd, Tony Atlas, Aldo Marino, the Axe, George Wells, Johnny Rodz, the Spoiler, Joe Mirto, Moondog Spot, Ivan Putski, David Sammartino, Charlie Fulton, and Jim Neidhart; order of elimination: Mirto by the Spoiler; Atlas by Spot & the Axe; Marino by the Axe & Fulton; Fulton by Sammartino via a punch to the face; the Axe by Wells; the Spoiler by Putski; Studd by Putski; Spot, Wells, Rodz, & Blair; Putski by Spot; Wells; Rodz by Blair; Spot by Sammartino; Sammartino by Neidhart; Neidhart by Bret via an accidental dropkick; Bret by Blair via a dropkick after Bret became distracted by Sammartino at ringside; after the contest, Blair and Sammartino cleared the ring of the Hart Foundation6/8/85 - included Tito Santana as a guest of the Piper's Pit with Bobby Heenan as the guest host:WWF Tag Team Champions the Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff (w/ Freddie Blassie) defeated Sal Gee & Jose Luis Rivera at 2:38 in a non-title match when Gee submitted to Sheik's Camel Clutch; after the match, the champions threw their opponents out of the ringGeorge Steele (w/ Capt. Lou Albano) defeated Mike Powers via submission to the flying hammerlock at 1:54The Spoiler (w/ Johnny V) pinned Joe Mirto at 3:07 with a claw hold following a flying forearm off the topDavid Sammartino pinned the Axe at 3:33 with a powerslamThe Missing Link (w/ Bobby Heenan) pinned Aldo Marino at 2:12 with a headbutt off the top (Link's debut)Ricky Steamboat pinned Mr. X at 5:06 with the flying bodypress6/15/85 - included the Missing Link as a guest of the Piper's Pit with Bobby Heenan as the guest host:Tito Santana pinned Dave Barbie at 4:31 with the flying forearmB. Brian Blair pinned Steve Lombardi at 4:08 with an elbow drop following a double axe handle off the top (Blair's return match)Ricky Steamboat pinned Rene Goulet with the flying bodypress at 3:25; after the match, Steamboat fought off an attack from his opponentBarry O & Moondog Spot defeated Bobby Leon & Jim Young at 2:48 when Barry pinned Leon with a kneedrop from the middle turnbuckle following a shoulderbreaker from SpotPaul Orndorff pinned AJ Petruzzi with the piledriver at 2:28WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine (w/ Jimmy Hart) & Brutus Beefcake (w/ Johnny V) defeated Paul Roma & Mario Mancini at 4:16 when Mancini submitted to Valentine's figure-46/22/85 - included Big John Studd as a guest of the Piper's Pit with Bobby Heenan as the guest host:Paul Orndorff pinned Matt Borne at 1:50 with the piledriver; after the bout, Bobby Heenan appeared in the entranceway, with Orndorff challenging Heenan to fight himBret Hart & Jim Neidhart (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated Tony Garea & Jim Powers at 2:09 when Bret pinned Powers following the Hart AttackThe Missing Link (w/ Bobby Heenan) pinned Gary Starr at 2:27 with a diving headbutt from the topTony Atlas & Ivan Putski defeated Doc Butler & AJ Petruzzi at 2:46 when Putski pinned Butler with the Polish HammerRicky Steamboat pinned Johnny Rodz at 3:17 with the flying bodypressMike Rotundo (w/ Capt. Lou Albano) defeated WWF Tag Team Champion the Iron Sheik (w/ Freddie Blassie) via disqualification at 3:37 when Nikolai Volkoff prevented the pinfall after Rotundo hit the airplane spin; after the contest, George Steele made the save with a chair against the Volkoff & Sheik
Yeah it was these types of tapings that necessitated using so much canned heat for these taped shows -- the crowds had to be comatose aftersomany squashes
ReplyDeleteman and i thought it might be tough for some people to sit through an ROH taping since they do so many at a time and that's GOOD wrestling. What Scott just described sounds like hell
ReplyDeleteI thought it was tough sitting through RAW when it came to Hartford a few weeks ago (the Vince gets clocked episode.) No commentary and nine dollar Heinekens made for a dull time. I'm going to stick to HDTV and Dogfish Head from now on.
ReplyDeleteThat actually doesn't sound too bad. Lots of squashes but Honky Tonk Man/Macho, Hogan/Bigelow vs. Andre/DiBiase, Bulldogs vs. Islanders all sound pretty good and there are some other matches with upper midcard guys.
ReplyDeleteI went to a SmackDown taping in Hartford in 2000 (the one where Angle broke Hardcore Holly's arm) and it was just as brutal. Dark matches, international show matches, then Heat, then SmackDown....and NO Rock. It was close to 4 hours and I wanted to cry.
ReplyDeleteOne other factor is that for the late-1970s/early 1980s WWF, they kept using a tiny arena in Allentown, PA for the tv tapings. This meant two things: first, you didn't need a lot of people to attend (it was closer to high school gym than NBA arena), and second, that you had a local audience which was conditioned to sit through these marathons.
ReplyDeleteWellington wilkens? Van van horne? I miss jobbers, they had the best names
ReplyDeleteSquash matches were the only way to do it, I think, back then. Because of syndication you really only made your money at MSG, Boston, or Philly shows and then the PPV's. Like mentioned, you could only get maybe 5,000 for a taping in the early days anyway, so these were the shows to feed the bigger ones. No one would go see Muraco-Snuka if they just wrestled on Superstars the previous week. You had to make both invincible. But in the 90's TV became big money so there went the squash match. As much as no one liked squashes, you have to wonder if we would have been better off in the long run instead of championship matches on TV with little storyline and then the same matches over and over with DQ's and run-ins to keep workers "strong," and give a reason for next week. And PPV's every month...there's no way you can have quality with such over exposure.
ReplyDeleteAnd whatever happened to Van Van Horne? :)
I went to a raw taping in the mid 90's and it was brutal. They filmed three shows and then we got a main event of lawler and razor ramon vs waltman and luger. Awful
ReplyDeleteI went to a couple tv tapings. It seemed to go by a formula. Opening match to warm up the crowd, tape one show, have a mid-card match, tape second show, another mid card match, tape third show, couple upper card matches, Hulk Hogan main event, go home.
ReplyDeleteI think the only way to compensate too many good matches on TV is to have a very very big roster, like WCW in 1998. They had over 100 wrestlers and that was the reason, why they didn't had to show the same match over and over again, like today. Today they have ca. 61 wrestlers including The Rock, Jerry Lawler, Triple H, Undertaker & Hornswoggle. And on SD they only use half of them. Anyone wondering, why the shows are so stale?
ReplyDeleteI remember going to a 4 hour WCW Thunder taping in 1999. The live show was pretty good since we got a Ric Flair heel turn after Uncensored and a Hulk Hogan-Curt Hennig match, which was insane since Hogan rarely appeared on Thunder. The taped second show, though, wasn't that great and the crowd had fallen asleep or gone home early. By the time they hit the Ric Flair-Barry Windham main event, only a quarter of the crowd remained. At least my dad let me stay for the whole show, although he probably wasn't happy getting home at 1 a.m. and having to get up for work the next day at 5.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why they don't ocassionally use their mid-card wrestlers. Maybe if they appear every once in awhile then maybe a few of them would catch on. Look at Heath Slater, he hardly appeared on the main shows before the legends angle, but he caught on enough that there is talk that he might enter a US title program with Santino. Not everyone is going to catch on but at least give these guys a chance to succeed or fail instead of just doing nothing with them.
ReplyDeleteThey had a couple of GREAT Ryback jobber names a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteWillard Fillmore and Rutherford P.S. Hayes!
No commentary sounds like a blessing to me.
ReplyDeleteGotta say, I never went to a WWF marathon taping, but I have been to a few WCW TV tapings in the early to mid '90's and I have to admit those tapings were actually pretty fun due to the fact that WCW's TV matches tended to be more competitive than the WWF squash-o-ramas at the time. The only real downside was WCW's tendency to put everyone in the building on the side that the hard camera is facing to make it look like a full house, so as a result not only are you staring at the ring but you're also seeing a completely empty section of the building.
ReplyDeleteAlso attended back-to-back TNA's No Surrender PPV in 2005 (for some reason that show is extremely hard to find, it's not even available on either the TNA on-demand site or the TNA YouTube channel) and the next day the Impact tapings back when they were still taping a whole month worth of shows in one or two days. In the span of three days, I got to see Rhino's TNA debut, his first TNA match, Samoa Joe's first competitive TNA match, an awesome Raven/Abyss dog-collar match, a shockingly good AJ Styles/Sean Waltman match, a very good Alex Shelley/Shocker match, and a fun Raven & Sabu tag match.
Overall, a very fun experience. Sometimes, going through these marathons isn't always doom and gloom, it just depends on which shows you choose to attend.
Although I did have a friend who attended a 6 1/2 hour (!!!) RAW taping in West Virginia in August 1996 and he stopped watching wrestling for good after that experience.
Funny thing about the old WWF TV shows.. damn near EVERY time they had two bonafide superstars facing each other, it ended in some type of heel/face turn or controversial finish... I can't remember many clean finishes unless it was the rare face vs face match.
ReplyDeleteRaw brought a new type of excitement to the WWF. I was at a bunch of those early Manhattan Center shows and the room was almost always electric.. even with the Brooklyn Brawler/Bastion Booger type gimmick wrestlers. The crowd always had ready made chants and the room was so small it felt so different from all the other MSG house shows I had been to. We had to sit through HOURS of shows back then, but I know I had fun.
I feel your pain, Logan. I attended the infamous Kevin Nash Thunder in 1999 (for those who may be confused, this was Kevin Nash's final show as booker. As a result, he sat in on commentary and made obscure inside remarks during the entire show.) and it may have came off well on TV, but it was hell for the live audience since we couldn't hear the commentary in the arena, which means we were just watching a cavalcade of mid-carders and jobbers go through the motions just to amuse Kevin Nash.
ReplyDeleteEven worse was the main event. Goldberg and Sting didn't show up, even though they were advertised to be there (as it turns out, Nash has since revealed that half of the guys that were scheduled to work that night didn't show up.) so we got a main event consisting of Rick Steiner and Lex Luger vs. La Parka and Buff Bagwell (I kid you not). And of course, Buff walked out on the match because he didn't want to do the job. So of course, Russo immediately started pushing Bagwell. Gotta love unprofessionalism being rewarded.
Anyway, while I've usually had fun experiences at wrestling shows, that show was a horrible, depressing experience.
Yikes, sounds dreadful. One day I might recap the 1999 Thunder season and do that episode, since I've never seen it.
ReplyDeleteSeeing Hogan live was probably my best experience as a fan. He was supposed to be the heel, but the Lexington crowd cheered him anyway and he played to it at the end by cupping his ears on all corners of the ring, so it was kind of like Hulkamania returned for one night. It was a great experience.
I remember how they used to have shows at the NF convention center, which I thought was really weird. Any idea why they did them there, and not The Aud? It's not like The Aud was unsuitable for wrestling or anything, WCW did quite a few shows there.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't imagine going to a show like this as a 10 year old, I would have been begging to go home about a third of the way through. And I had no idea the guys like Gillberg and Headbanger Thrasher were around way back in 1992.
I went to one in Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1993. I had just seen my first house show less than a year prior and was pumped to see more live wrestling. Even I, at 10 years old, realized it was long, boring and time to go home. It had to be close to King of the Ring, because I remember a lot of talk about Hulk Hogan defending the championship. I'm pretty sure he didn't actually appear though.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know it was a television taping. It started out like a regular house show, Shawn Michaels vs Virgil or somebody like that, I think. Then I noticed some jobbers, and guys who already wrestled, and by then I didn't know what the hell was going on. I remember wondering why one of the Beverly Brothers kept wrestling singles matches. Adam Bomb made his debut there. I think Bastian Booger did to. I think Mr Perfect beat Michaels in a dark match. Five hours and that's all I remember.
You would think so, especially in the Michael Cole era, but it actually made everything quite boring. It was just a couple of guys in tights running around in the ring during those segments.
ReplyDeleteRealistically, I'm doing a crossword puzzle during the matches half the time anyway and only look up when someone's voice rises in pitch.
It was boring, but I wouldn't say it was hell because I was so incredibly pumped to finally get a TV taping in my city. I hated it at the time, but later I appreciated the valuable experience it gave me. Much like Thunder.
ReplyDeleteWent to a Superstars taping here in Hamilton, Ontario in June of 1992. Saw Razor Ramon wrestle a dark match against Jim Powers to kick off the show.
ReplyDeleteIt was a long exhausting evening, but we got 'Taker/Berzerker (shit match, but 'Taker was over like nothing I'd heard before). same with Warrior/Shango (Warrior had the crowd amped even if the match didn't). And there was a pretty good tag title match pitting Money Inc. against High Energy, and two excellent matches, being BRet/Martel for the I-C Belt, and Savage/Michaels for the championship. The night ended with a 40-man battle royal won by the Bulldog. I was only 9 at the time, and while extremely tired by the time I got home, still had a great time.
Dogfish Head sounds like a blessing to me...
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you got a match or two on the Rampage 1992 tape.
ReplyDeleteYeah, amazing what happens when you let guys show a little personality.
ReplyDeleteAlso Skull Von Krus later became Big Vito, and Scott Taylor was also on that taping. Quiet the Who's Who of jobbers that later became something on that taping. Anyone know if the Roadblock who jobbed to Jim Brunzell at that taping is the same Roadblock who jobbed for WCW around 1996?
ReplyDeleteOr the Roadblock from ECW, who I'm pretty sure wasn't the one from WCW.
ReplyDeletehahaha, they actually used a Kamala jobber match as a Main Event? AWESOME.
ReplyDeletePart of me wishes I could have seen one of these shows, especially for the rare "good matches". Though a real House Show is better I suppose, since the ones I went to had NO squashes.
No idea why they didn't run it at the Aud, been to a few shows there as well over the years as well. Best show I ever got the privilege of going to was The Big Event in Toronto back in 86, was a great show and a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteThis taping was a who's who of stars and looking back future stars. I was pissed that Sid no showed though, was looking forward to Sid/Warrior. I was lucky how many shows my dad took me to in the 80s/early 90s, considering he hated the stuff. Any time they were in Hamilton at Copps we usually went, along with occasional Maple Leaf Gardens or Aud show. Also went to a house showt Melody Fair in 94 or 95, our last WWF show. Best part was the wrestlers had to park with the fans, and Bam Bam Bigelow was parked next to us! Memories....
I went to a couple shows at Copps, including the Breakdown PPV. Man, that place is a shithole. I never knew they did shows at Melody Fair, that must have been a pretty small crowd.
ReplyDeleteI don't think many wrestling fans could take 6 1/2 hours of 1996 Raw and not swear off wrestling all together.
ReplyDelete