Was a sad day when Demolition disbanded. Had they remained a further 2 years, we could have seen them battle the likes of Money Inc., The Nasty Boys, The Head Shrinkers, etc.

So, WrestleTalk Magazine is claiming it’s been forty years since WrestleMania I.

Like the WWF/WWE, it seems someone failed at maths. How hard is it? A person born in 1985 would be turning 39 this year, and will turn 40 next year.

It really is bizarre to a pedant like me how the wrestling media seemingly can’t count. They never state “it’s the fortieth edition/instalment” or anything, they always state, “It’s been forty years since…”

A couple who married in 1985 would not be celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary until next year. If they went around planning an anniversary party for this year, and claimed it was their fortieth wedding anniversary, a family member would no doubt say, “No, this year is your 39th anniversary, if you want a 40th anniversary party, you need to do that next year.”

Please get it right, wrestling media.

He forgot the razor blades taped to their fingertips.

I remember reading in PWI, after a picture of Abby and Sonny Chiba, from one of Chiba's movies (EDIT:  Roaring Fire), that Abby, who was a big gambler, used to do a party chip of sticking gambling chips in the ridges of his forehead scar tissue.

Whatta classy guy!

I've seen images of him chewing on raw meat and wouldn't be surprised if he chewed on raw liver.  Abby was a messed up dude, since childhood, depending on how much of what he has said about it you believe (and I don't believe much that has come out of his mouth, in recent years.  One thing is for certain, he learned the art of the con long before he got into pro wrestling.

Eating it and chewing on it are two different things, though.  Still, you can teach yourself to eat raw meat; so, who knows?

Me, I like my meat dead and knowing that it is dead.  None of this "rare" s@#$!

I just finished watching Dark Side of The Ring, "Black Saturday: The Rise of Vince McMahon." This was a really good one.

Those featured in interviews included: Jim Cornette (their best historical source), Gerald Brisco (who was instrumental in selling the stock to Vince to give him controlling interest), Joe Hamilton Jr, aka Nick Patrick (GCW referee and occasional wrestler and son the The Assassin, Jody Hamilton), Bob Roop (who worked as a wrestler for Ole, off and on and got along with him and had tried to run opposition in Florida and Knoxville, in his day), Bryant Rogowski (aka Bryant Anderson, Ole's son), Dave Meltzer, and a pair of former GCW office employees (one a secretary, the other worked n the ring crew and other areas).

One definite plus is a brief clip of a very young Jim Cornette, being interviewed by Freddie Miller, as part of the Superstars of Georgia Championship Wrestling deal, with his Cornette Dynasty of Champions (The Angel & The Bounty Hunter and Norman Frederick Charles III & King Carl Fergie). That was back in the days of Cornette in the yachting cap. That always makes my heart warm, because that was the first work I saw of his.

They cover the background of GCW and Barnett, on WTBS; not the Atlanta Wars stuff, from the 70s. This was background about how hot Georgia Championship Wrestling was, as a cable tv show, which brought in talent from all over the NWA, to be seen nationally, on tv. An appearance on there could boost attendence quite a bit, for a wrestler's appearance. Ole was booking, wrestling, and owned a percentage of the company, along with Jim Barnett, Paul Jones (the Georgia promoter, not the Number 1 Paul Jones wrestler and manager, working for Crockett), Fred Ward (Macon, GA promoter, who had his own tv show, with the Georgia wrestlers, for local broadcast) and the Brisco Brothers (who had bought in). They talked about how hot it was and the business they had done, with the cable penetration (it was the Number 1 cable tv show, for a long time), but then their dividend checks weren't reflecting it. meanwhile, Barnett is charging off all kinds of expenses to their receipts from the arenas...some legit, like deposits to the arenas...some were semi-legit, like bribes and gifts to connected people (politicians, building owners to keep others out, commission officials)...and some were akin to embezzlement, for personal expenses, like a private chef and clothes and trips, etc). Ole is watching and decides it is time for Barnett to go, breaks into Barnett's office and gets a look at the books. At a shareholder meeting, where Barnett hands out checks from sales of a calendar, Ole meets with everyone, after he is gone, and convinces them in voting with him and Barnett is out. However, as Cornette said, Barnett was the most connected guy in wrestling, who knew everyone and where all of the bodies were buried.

Ole runs things and they expand into the Sheik's old territory and parts of the old Knoxville territory and Pennsylvania. They do big business and the profits are good (which is what led to the deal with Jarrett to bring in Cornette and the other guys for the Superstars of GCW show). However, Vince has gotten the time slot on USA Network, after Southwest Championship gets so far behind in payments and ticks off executives with blood and a match involving manure at ringside). Vince gets the other promotions to send him tapes (he was still an NWA member) to feature on his cable show. He uses tapes of the guys he wants to sign, like Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff, Junkyard Dog, etc. Then, he signs them up.

Ole focuses more on his Georgia crew and they aren't drawing the same crowds, but the arenas are costing a lot to run. The Briscos start looking to sell their shares, because their profits are down and working shows reveals how low the crowds are getting. Barnett goes to work for Vince McMahon as Director of Operations and gets in touch with the Briscos and gets them and the other shareholders to sell their stock to Vince. Vince walks into the Georgia offices and announces he has bought the company, then fires the staff. At WTBS, he appears on air, with Freddie Miller and pitches to taped matches from other WWF shows. switchboards at WTBS light up with angry people, wanting their "Gordon Solie wrestling."

Bryant tells the story of most of this going down while they are in Minnesota and Wisconsin, making funeral arrangements for Ole's mother, who had passed away. They fly back after being alerted by the secretary and Ole and Vince meet at the studio (Bryant says it was the only time he was in the presence of Vince) and Vince is trying to convince him to come in with him, that he will have a job in the organization (and Ole was a well respected booker and McMahon was probably sincere of wanting to use him) and then introduces Linda to him. Ole said "@#$% you," to Vince and then tuned "and @#$% you," to Linda, then stormed out.

Ole did eventually sell his shares to Vince, then uses the money to finance running Championship Wrestling from Georgia and gets a Saturday morning slot from Turner, who isn't happy about the declining ratings for the 6:05 Saturday show. Eventually, Turner is about to kick McMahon off the air and Barnett brokers the deal to sell the time slot to Crockett, for $1 million cash, which Vince uses to finance Wrestlemania.

Left out of that discussion completely was the fact that Turner also gave a slot (Sundays, I believe, though my memory is fuzzy) to Bill Watts and Mid-South, which does excellent ratings, with the Rock N Roll Express vs the Midnight Express, Jim Duggan vs Skandor Ackbar and his group (including Ted Dibiase) and Junkyard Dog (who hasn't defected yet). Turner was considering putting Watts into the Saturday slot, in place of McMahon, when Crockett bought it. Turner doesn't go through with the deal and Mid-South is taken off WTBS, ultimately leading to them rebranding as the UWF, then trying to heavily syndicate their show, which bled money, leading to their downfall, as well as the drop off in their core towns.

Jim is good with the bigger picture events and for Barnett's history and character and dave adds a bit to that. Bryant covers Ole's side, with roop adding a few things (at first, I thought it was Ole, as he was still alive when they filmed interviews....Roop has aged and has his own health issues and looked a lot like Ole, with a beard and glasses). Gerald Brisco told their side of the dealings, their motivations and some of the fallout they got within the business, but the financial rewards they got from McMahon. Nick Patrick and the office people add inside stuff from GCW, beyond the owners.

Tommy Wildfire Rich is also interviewed, adding a few things, though not a lot, but at least he seems pretty together, compared to some shoot interviews I have seen. Strangely, they don't mention his title reign as an example of Barnett's power within the NWA, as it was a gimmee to Barnett and how much the tv show helped the NWA, as a whole, by featuring talent from other promotions in the group. Tommy was their top star and he was good, especially in those days; but, he was hardly NWA World Champion material. So, they gave him a 4 day run with the belt.

They didn't bring up the Superstars deal, even with the clip of Corny, which would make for a good extra, or if they wanted to do another Tales From the Territories batch (though the Rock was involved in that, to try and make Polynesian Pacific look bigger than it was and further the myth that Lia Maivia was an innocent target of the FBI).

Like I said earlier, 1984 was an interesting time to be a wrestling fan. It saw the rise of Hulk Hogan, Vince Mcmahon and the WWF, on a national stage, the beginning demise of most of the territories, Crockett's expansion (really beginning with Starrcade '83 and continuing to buying out Vince), Mid-South getting onto a bigger stage, Verne getting the Road Warriors, for a bit and then the Pro Wrestling USA conglomeration, for its brief cooperative effort, World Class reaching its apex, then quickly dropping off into tragedy and financial ruin, Memphis still running strong, Florida still somewhat strong, Portland, Puerto rico doing big business, Japan in the midst of the tiger Mask phenomena, etc. Then, in 1985, it all starts changing, as things start shaking out from those actions in 1984 (and '83, really).

Meltzer makes a good point, at the end, that cable is what killed the territories, as now viewers could see the best wrestling and compare it to their local promotion and many came up wanting, except in Texas, Oklahoma, Memphis and the Carolinas. Florida was strong, but Eddie Graham's personal issues, coupled with the loss of Dusty to Crockett, hurt his business and it died with him, essentially. The AWA did all right, with the aid of getting on ESPN, for a couple of yeas, before he lost his promising young talent. Despite the picture the internet paints, Verne did try to change and develop young talent, like Scott Hall and Curt Hennig, Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty, Pat Tanak and Paul Diamond, Madusa Micceli, Sherri Martel. However, once he built them up, Vince or Crockett drew them away with bigger money. Verne didn't change with his presentation, despite being in Vegas, for the tapings, which didn't help.

Don Owens was always a smaller promoter, but he owned his building and made good money off weekly swap meets there, plus the wrestling, with young talent and some veterans. Even so, he lost talent, couldn't compete with WWF production values and his partner's (Sandy Barr) own sons had to go elsewhere to make a living (Jesse "Jimmy Jack Funk" and Art "Beetlejuice/The Juicer/Love Machine" Barr).

Hawaii was never major, after Ed Francis sold out and the Maivias barely ran shows, before the one night Aloha Stadium show, which had talent sent in by Crockett, New Japan and some others. It cost a ton, made a little and lost tons when they tried it again the next year. otherwise, they were hardly doing big business with Siva Afi, Lars Anderson, Superfly Tui and Farmer Boy Ipo. Wrestlers weren't stopping over for shots because they couldn't earn a decent payoff for their trouble.

California died by the dawn of the 80s, as did Detroit. Pensacola drifted along for a bit, but died with the end of the 80s. KC was on life support through the mid-80s, died when they sold it, twitched a leg for a moment when Geigel brought it back, then rigger mortis set in.

Like I said, a good one. There are title cards at the end, about Vince's legal woes and the death of Ole.