My World w/ Jeff Jarrett - The Year Was 1987 [Show Notes] (Patreon)

With the WWF selling out the Pontiac Silverdome for WrestleMania III, Jim Crockett buying the UWF, and Crockett Promotions running its first pay-per-view, 1987 was a pivotal year for the wrestling business in the United States. It was also a pivotal year in the career of Jeff Jarrett, his first full calendar year as a pro wrestler, which is also the year of his first world title shot and a year where he really started to catch the attention of hardcore fans for his in-ring work, particularly his feud with Pat Tanaka. This week, we take a walk through 1987, with the caveat that this isn’t supposed to be an exhaustive look at the year. We’re going to get Jeff’s thoughts on some of the big milestones not just in his career, but also in his home territory and the business at large.

Jeff, before we get into the notes proper, how were you feeling about your career so far and the state of the Memphis territory when 1987 started? You and Billy Travis were feuding with The Rock ‘n’ Roll RPMs over the Southern Tag Team Titles and the territory was really heating up with the arrival of Tommy Rich and Austin Idol as regulars plus Nick Bockwinkel being in regularly as AWA World Heavyweight Champion.

As far as general wrestling news, we start with some bad signs in Bill Watts’ UWF…

Observer 1/12/1987

Observer: The biggest news story, and really the two biggest news stories of the past week come out of the UWF. Both Jim Duggan and The Fantastics have been released from their current contracts effective the end of this month. Since Duggan was the most popular wrestler in the UWF, this is a major development. Duggan will now get a chance to join Titan Sports, as he’s been wanting to for the past three months. The Fantastics, on the other hand, appear to have no immediate plans, basically because there really isn’t anywhere they can go to make money in the current pro wrestling scene.

In time, it would come out that what happened was that Watts was unable to pay everyone’s guarantees, breaching their deals and making them free agents if they wanted to leave. Jeff, do you recall when and how you first heard that the UWF was in trouble?

As a fellow “little guy” of that era, do you think that The Fantastics made the right call, or was Dave right that this was a short-sighted move on their part?

Observer 1/19/1987

From The Readers Pages of the Observer: After seeing my first Championship Wrestling Association show in Memphis on 12/28, I believe there is someone there better than Jerry Bryant. Bryant is good, but he’s only about 5-9 or 5-10. The real rising star of the promotion is Jeff Jarrett. He reminds me of Sam Houston 1 ½ years ago the way he can take bumps. This promotion should do okay with Jarrett on top when Jerry Lawler retires. I would recommend Memphis as a great place to vacation and see. There are a lot of interesting things to do there besides see the wrestling.

John Lanigan

McKeesport, Pennsylvania

Why do you think the newsletter fans were so high on you as a rookie, anyway?

You were teaming with Billy Joe Travis and trading tag titles back and forth with the likes of the Rock n Roll RPMs at the time. What are your memories of those matches?

Observer 2/2/1987

Observer: In whet actually is another major piece of news, apparently Jerry Lawler will be out of action for a few months. On the 1/11 card he was double-teamed by Austin Idol and Tommy Rich and did a stretcher job. It was then announced on TV that he had major groin surgery and would be out of action for about three months. Now I’ve got two sources this week who told me that, in fact, Lawler did undergo minor surgery (I’m not sure if it was to the groin or whatever) and the story is pretty well legit and they created the angle to explain his absence. This comes just at the time this group seemed to have some really good momentum with Lawler feuding with Rich and Idol and the return of The Fabulous Ones.

For those who have never seen the “postings” that Idol and Rich dealt Lawler, each stood on the floor holding one of Lawler’s feet while he was down in the ring, and then, on a count of three, yanked him crotch-first into the post.

What the heck possessed Lawler to do this, even knowing he was getting either a vasectomy or vasectomy reversal (there are conflicting stories)?

Was the idea at all to kayfabe the medical staff when he got his procedure? Is there an actual magic trick to doing this spot safely, even if you won’t tell us what it is? 

At least on some TV stations, Lance Russell was bleeped when he said that Lawler suffered a ruptured testicle. Did that get the promotion any heat with the stations?

What do you think it was about Idol and Rich that made them have such great chemistry as an act as heels? Especially since both had been babyfaces for the last several years.

Observer 3/2/1987

Observer: As of the end of this week, Wrestlemania III had sold approximately 40,000 tickets at the Silverdome. Even though there is still five weeks left, it's going to be very difficult to actually sell 50,000 more seats as all the good seats are gone, and most of the die-hard fans already have them. Those who are flying in probably have made reservations, so now you are looking mainly at the fringe folks--who will attend this show in great numbers--but I don't know about 50,000 more of them. The place is going to be filled anyway, somehow. The pay-per-view is being blacked out in both Michigan and Ontario in order to promote live gate attendance. 

When an event this size comes together - what does it mean for the smaller promotions down the food chain?

What did you & your Dad think about Mania and the size of it all?

As a territorial wrestler and promoter’s kid, what did you think back then of the way that Titan Sports manipulated the media to further its narrative of pro wrestling suddenly being uniquely hot?

It’s clear that pro wrestling on home video is big business. The Memphis territory has flirted with it a little bit, mainly by licensing footage to one of Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s early videos and doing smaller mail order releases with Independent Media Marketing, with another coming soon documenting the big Lawler-Idol cage match. Do you think this is an area your dad and Lawler should have explored more? Or was there not enough room for smaller promotions to get a worthwhile piece of the pie that the WWF and Crockett were dominating?

Observer: Over this past weekend they went past the 70,000 mark in ticket sales to the live Wrestlemania show at the Pontiac Silverdome, which makes it the largest crowd ever to witness a liue pro wrestling show ever in North America. This breaks the record of about 69,400 tickets sold to the August 28, 1986 Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff match at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium. As of 3/9, approximately 71,000 tickets had been sold, so it appears Titan will sell out the Silverdome (close to 90,000 seats, which would gross in the $2 million range) and plans are already being made to open up additional closed circuit seating at a downstairs building within the Silverdome. I’m told WM will be in 166 closed-circuit locations (down from about 220 last year) and be available in nearly 6 million homes for pay-per-view. Judging by how they've done in the past, and taking into account a few less PPV households because of the $19.95 price for PPV this year (as opposed to $10 to $15 last year), I'd guess they'll wind up in about 500,000 or so PPV homes (which adds up to a staggering $10 million right there). I'd also guess that the closed-circuit. crowds will be a little lower than expected because of the increased PPV availability, plus the fewer locations than last year.

Ringside tickets for Wrestlemania are being scalped for about $150.

Once it became clear that WrestleMania III was poised to be the biggest show in the history of professional wrestling, how did the rest of the industry react?

When was the first time you ever heard of scalpers selling rasslin’ tickets?

Week of 3/16/1987 (Detroit Free Press 3/17 & Observer 3/23)

Observer: The latest on Wrestlemania continues to be impressive for the most part. They've sold 78,500 tickets, which is 9,500 shy of a sellout with two weeks left before the card, at the Silverdome. A sellout is a certainty, which would be the largest live crowd for any indoor event ever in North America, and probably anywhere because I don't think there is a larger indoor stadium in the world. 

1) The live gate in Pontiac will be in excess of $2 million--double that of the combined gate of the three live shows last year.

2) Pay-per-view will be available in 50 percent more homes, so it’ll almost surely be more profitable than last year.

Others in the business at the time, like Michael Hayes, have commented in the past about how this was roughly when they realized that the WWF had become a juggernaut that would be exceedingly difficult to compete with. Did you feel that at all at the time, or was it hard to look at it that way when the Memphis territory was still thriving? For perspective, in this very week that we’re talking about, the Mid-South Coliseum show drew 7,000 fans and a $40,000 house for a main event of Lawler vs. Idol and Bigelow vs. Rich in a “Double Jeopardy Match” where the two bouts took place simultaneously in adjacent rings. The week before a tag team match with the four drew 8,000 fans.

Michael Hayes has said that the Steamboat-Savage match in particular really concerned him about the promotional war, because now the WWF had proven that it could match the NWA and UWF in terms of big show match quality. What did you think of the match when you first saw it?

Do you feel that a match like this was necessary on a show where the main event was such a spectacle, but where the physical, athletic shape of one of the wrestlers involved was such a question mark the way it was with Andre the Giant?

The long battle has always been - what was the best match on the show? Savage vs. Steamboat or Hogan vs. Andre. The guys who think the draw and sold out the Silverdome have said Hogan vs. Andre was the best match that night. The workrate guys have said Savage vs. Steamboat - what say you?

What can you tell us about the presentation and what you thought of WrestleMania? How about your Dad?

Crockett Promotions had already taken over Florida, and now they’ve bought out Watts. Suddenly, the territories are constricting a lot more. What did you and your dad think when you found out about all of the moves that Crockett had been making?

As someone who was in a territory that bordered Mid-South/the UWF, do you buy that the oil crash was such a big factor in the collapse of the core UWF territory, or do you think it’s overstated by Watts?

Observer 5/11/1987

April 27, 1987 @ the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, TN drawing 8,500 according to ProWrestlingHistory.com (9,500 according to the Observer):

• Jeff Jarrett pinned Pat Tanaka in a "steel cage" match.

• Austin Idol pinned Jerry Lawler (18:17) in a "hair vs. hair steel cage" match to win the Southern Title.

Observer: Lawler got pounded around for a while, then made his big comeback after pulling down the strap of his ring top. At this point, the referee got bumped and Lawler gave Idol several piledrivers, but there was no referee to count the fall. I should point out that the cage which surrounded the ring was oversized, and instead of sitting on the ring apron, was actually on the floor about a foot away from the apron on all sides. That becomes key because Tommy Rich came from under the ring (word is he’d been hiding there since 3 p.m. that day) and jumped in and he and Idol proceeded to do a number on Lawler, complete with spreading Lawler’s legs and ramming his groin into the ringpost. They had a riot after the match as Lawler got his head shaved while Rich, idol, and [Paul E.] Dangerly continued one low blow after another. It was something like 30 minutes before the heels could even get out of the cage because the fans were so rabid.

At this point, where did the post match stand among the wildest scenes you’d ever witnessed in your short career?

How much of the fans’ anger do you think was over Lawler getting his head shaved vs. realizing they weren’t getting their admission refunded, which is what would have happened if Lawler won?

Aside from Lawler winning the AWA Title a year later, this and the following week’s show are the last near-sellouts of the Coliseum. (The last sellout had been Lawler’s return to avenge Bill Dundee and Buddy Landel attacking referee Jeff Jarrett and trying to take out Jerry Jarrett’s good eye a little over a year prior.) What do you think it was about the Lawler vs. Idol and Rich feud that made it the last really sustained big business run that the territory had? How much do you think it has to do with the other changes to the business?

On top of everything else, this is the big blow off to Jeff’s singles feud with Pat Tanaka. Jeff, how much do you think this program accelerated your development as a worker? All of the newsletter correspondents who saw them at the time were raving about them.

Jeff, you got a shot at AWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Bockwinkel the following week and you won your first title, the Mid-American Title, two weeks later. How much was this all a sign that you were being seen as more than just the promoter’s rookie son?

You’d become MId America champion and work a lot with Moondog Spot. We’ve discussed the Moondogs in the past so check that out in the archives - but what was different about in 1987 compared to 1992?

Observer 6/1/1987

Observer: The Global Wrestling Alliance, a fledgling promotion unique in that it’s the first wrestling promotion ever to be syndicated as part of a public stock offering. As reported in Wrestling Forum, GWA went public on 4/21 at 10 cents per share (with seven million shares being sold to raise $700,000). However the stock wound up opening at 30 cents per share, and as of two weeks ago, it risen to 80 cents per share. 

Jeff, chat me up: How obvious to everyone else in wrestling was it that this was a scam?

Observer 6/8/1987

Observer: As most of you have probably already heard, the biggest news of the week all comes from Titan-land. At 2:20 p.m. this past Tuesday afternoon (5/26), Jim Duggan and The Iron Sheik (Khosrow Vaziri) were arrested on drug charges. The two were driving through Middletown, New Jersey, enroute to a card that night in Asbury Park when state troopers pulled them over as they saw Duggan drinking a bottle of beer while driving. While walking to the car, the officers caught the scent of burned marijuana cigarettes and upon inspection, found several joints in the ashtray of the car. Duggan was found with a small amount of marijuana while three grams of cocaine was found in the Sheik's shaving kit. Duggan was released later that day on his own recognizance while Sheik was released after posting $5,000 bond. The two worked against each other later that night in a tag team match which ended when Duggan hit Sheik several times with a chair leading to the pin.

Jeff, what was the reaction to this outside of the WWF? It seems like this only got publicity because two guys who were feuding got busted together.

Observer 6/15/1987

Observer: A couple of title changes top this week's news. In a mild surprise, The Honkeytonk Man (Wayne Ferris) downed Ricky Steamboat to win the WWF Intercontinental strap on 6/2 at the TV taping in Buffalo. This match airs the weekend of June 13-14 on the WWF syndicated Superstars show. The only details we've got on the match were Jimmy Hart did some distracting at the end, and it was one of those deals where both men had their shoulders down and Honkeytonk raised his just in the nick of time while Steamboat didn't. The main reason for this change is that Steamboat will be taking a long sabbatical from wrestling in about two weeks since his first child is due in early July.

At the time, how did this go over in your territory? Given the kind of guy Vince usually pushed, was it surprising to see him put someone who was so “Tennessee” in a big money drawing position? Or not necessarily since he had tried Honky Tonk as a Lawler-style babyface in 1986, only for crowds to reject him?

What Tennessee wrestlers do you think would have had the best shots at getting over nationally in this era if given a fair shot?

The first record we could find of you main eventing at the Mid South Coliseum took place on June 29th - you & Moondog Spot. What did main eventing mean to you?

You’d even get to work the Nasty Boys in 1987 with Lawler & Bockwinkel on top - was it the same Nasty Boys - Brian Knobbs & Jerry Sags - that’d come to fame in that gimmick?

Observer 8/3/1987

Observer: Apparently the Montreal Wrestling Office (International Wrestling) has folded. I'm told last week was to be their final week of promotion and that Pat Patterson of Titan Sports was at the shows during the last week making a pitch for the group's babyface headliner Steve Strong (Steve DiSalvo). 

Another full-time territory bites the dust, just two years after an incredible run of business from the Rougeau Brothers vs. Garvin Brothers feud. How striking is it at this point that Memphis is able to survive?

Observer 9/14/1987

Observer: November 27, 1987 looks to be one of the most interesting dates in the recent history of pro wrestling because both Titan Sports and Jim Crockett Promotions will be presenting major Thanksgiving events. Titan has officially announced plans for a card entitled "The Survivors' Series" which is will broadcast nationally on pay-per-view cable systems. The site and line-up has yet to be determined, but it's obviously at least in part, an attempt to combat JCP's annual Starcade promotion which takes place the same day. It's been widely rumored that JCP is going to attempt to broadcast Starcade through pay-per-view this Thanksgiving, the first time JCP has attempted such a venture. One point has to be noted here--Titan, with its Andre the Giant-Hulk Hogan match in March, is going off the biggest pay-per-view event in the history of the industry, a whopping $10.3 million PPV event, which outshines every major boxing fight or anything else ever put on PPV. While I've heard no word that Titan is going to run an Andre-Hogan rematch, that would seem like a very likely possibility and a rematch of that big event could conceivably freeze out Crockett's attempt to get his Starcade card on PPV systems. Remember, if a cable company has a choice between broadcasting an Andre-Hogan rematch, coming off the biggest PPV event in history, or a JCP big show, which in the PPV industry is an unknown commodity, the choice will be easy and obvious. In addition, Titan is offering their Thanksgiving show to cable companies as part of a package deal for Wrestlemania IV. We'll be watching with great interest on what comes down with both of these shows as the weeks go by.

Vince pressuring the cable companies not to carry Starrcade is exactly what happened. Should Crockett have seen this coming?

Did the WWF’s tactics here scare other companies from trying pay-per-view? Crockett doesn’t have real success until he partners with Turner Home Entertainment to prevent Vince’s strongarm tactics, and when your dad dabbles in PPV with Verne the following year, it’s with a TV company, FNN/Score, partnering with the promotions as distributor. Did any promoter have a hope of making it on PPV at this point without a TV company that could fight off Vince taking a cut of the money?

Observer: The other major story of the past week is that it appears the Florida wrestling office will be history by the end of this month. Only 10 dates have been booked in Florida for October, and it is assumed that the Charlotte group will run those dates on their own, running regular monthly shows only in the major Florida cities. The demise of the Florida office has been heavily rumored for some time, since they local crew on its own hadn't been able to draw since the JCP take-over earlier this year. The moral of this story is obvious--fans aren't going to support a local group on a regular basis when outsiders (ie the Charlotte guys) come monthly and when Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, etc. are on the cards, the local guys who were the main eventers, become the prelim guys. The fans will instead wait for the monthly shows when the major stars come in. I hope this doesn't happen with the UWF area, because if the NWA guys are perceived and promoted as the bigger stars within the UWF territory, the fans won't support cards without the big stars on any kind of a regular basis.

The problem Dave describes here impacts Smoky Mountain Wrestling at the end of its run when fans waited for WWF talent to show up, but the effect was much less pronounced on Memphis in its use of the WWF guys. Why do you think that was?

Observer 8/17/1987

Observer: A group from Philadelphia sponsored by the Squared Circle, a wrestling novelty store in the area, spent last weekend down in Memphis as part of a tour which included get togethers with Jerry Lawler, Jeff Jarrett, Billy Travis, Lance Russell, Jerry Jarrett, Randy Hales and others associated with the promotion. Anyway, several readers made the trip and all seemed to enjoy it a great deal, particularly the Jeff Jarrett & Billy Travis vs. Paul Diamond & Pat Tanaka matches which more than one said were better matches than Crockett has ever had in Philadelphia. Thanks to Charles Hodgkisson of Toronto, our perennial contest runner-up finisher, we've got reports on three of the shows the group saw.

They opened the tour on 8/1 in Nashville before a near sellout 2,000 at the Fairgrounds: [...] 4. Jarrett & Travis downed Diamond & Tanaka when Travis clotheslined Tanaka. ****1/2

From 8/2 in Jackson before 3,000: [...] 4. Tanaka & Diamond beat Jarrett & Travis when Tanaka pinned Travis after hitting him with an object. ****

The final show was 8/3 in Memphis before 7,500 fans and a $24,000 gate (tickets for kids 18-and-under were $2) as: [...] 6. Jarrett & Travis beat the Nasty Boys via DQ when Diamond & Tanaka interfered. After the match, the Nasty Boys attacked Diamond & Tanaka and they had a three-way brawl going. ***.

Memphis had a tradition of groups of out of town hardcore fans descending on the territory for the weekend. First, there were the WFIA and Wrestling Fans International conventions in the late ‘70s-early ‘80s, then Joel Goodhart’s bus trips from Philadelphia like this one, and, finally, Jon Gallagher’s UAWF convention the following year. What do you think made the territory so much more receptive to newsletter reader types than most of the others?

You’ve renewed your feud with Pat Tanaka, now in tag team form, and the matches got more raves, including from the fickle Philly fans. What was it that you think caused you two to have such great chemistry, and why do you think Billy and Paul fit so well into that mix?

Did the out of town fans tend to behave themselves in terms of not acting too “smart,” or were there some incidents where they needed to be set straight?

You’d wrestle Carl Fergie as well and drop the Mid-America title to him and afterwards you’d have two dozen eggs thrown at you with the Wheel of Torture event where the losers had to recieve whatever punishment the wheel indicated. This is just classic Memphis is it not?

Observer 10/12

Observer: According to an article in the 9/21 issue of MultiChannel News, attorneys for The Wrestling Network (a JCP subsidiary) have sent a written request to Titan asking that the WWF drop a clause in its contract with cable operators which prohibits the cable companies from "promoting, marketing, advertising or presenting any other wrestling event 60 days prior to or 21 days after a WWF event." The same article also contained comments from James Troy of Titan Sports, the vice president of the department in charge of PPV, who said the clause was necessary so it wouldn't create confusion in the PPV marketplace between the two products. Troy also said the WWF wouldn't waive its protective clause as a result of the letter.

Bill Watts talked about antitrust lawsuits that didn’t go anywhere. Crockett made some noise here about a lawsuit and had previously sued Titan over some of its anti-competitive arena contracts. Why do you think more promoters didn’t fight back? Just not willing to spend the money on lawyers, whereas the Crocketts had a bigger war chest than most?

Observer: The biggest [AWA] news is the apparent departure of Nick Bockwinkel. Word I get is Bockwinkel is going to work for Titan Sports as an agent, which means he'll be retiring as an active wrestler probably after the tag team tournament in Japan. At least nobody can say Bockwinkel, who turns 53 in December, didn't go out on top.

As someone who had just wrestled Nick for the title five months earlier and worked semi-regularly for the AWA, did this strike you at the time as a bad sign for the state of that company?

You’re now a few years older than Nick was when he retired, although he had a few legends’ matches from 1990-1993 where he still looked as good as ever. You, meanwhile, have gotten a lot of praise for just how well you’ve performed in the last few years. But back then? It was very out of the ordinary for someone in his 50s to perform at an elite level like Nick did. Nutrition, training methods, and sports medicine are so different now from where they were 37 years ago. As someone who worked with him that year and is in similar shoes now, what is it about Nick Bockwinkel that you think allowed him to keep going at such a high level, long past what would have been expected of anyone in that era?

Why do you think Nick didn’t last particularly long as an agent/producer in the WWF?

Observer 10/19/1987

Observer: 10/5 in Memphis drew 2,000 as Don Bass & Carl Fergie beat Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee in an explosive match (falls count anywhere in the building); Curt Hennig pinned Jeff Jarrett to retain the AWA championship; 

Why do you think that Curt didn’t click with the Memphis fans as champion here? What was it like to work with him in this pre-Mr. Perfect era?

Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee won the AWA tag belts beating Ustinov & Somers on 10/11 in Memphis. This further solidifies the AWA/CWA connection, although I don't expect Lawler & Dundee to hold it for any major length of time because it would require frequent traveling to AWA cities for title matches. Also on the card, Lawler & Dundee & Steve Keirn lost to The Black Prince (Brickhouse Brown) & Carl Fergie & Don Bass; Nasty Boys beat Lord Humongous & Big Bubba; Diamond & Tanaka beat Steve Armstrong & Smothers; Jaggers pinned Rocky Johnson and the RPMs beat Jarrett & Travis.

Dave was right that they wouldn’t hold the titles long, but this was put over as a huge deal on TV. Was the relationship with Verne actually deepening? Or was it just a bone to mix things up and transition the titles to the Original Midnight Express when Boris Zhukov left for the WWF without giving Verne his notice?

Observer 11/2/1987

Observer: I know many of you have heard wrestling's No. 1 rumor regarding a possible merger or buy-out of the AWA and Jarrett Promotions. I do know that negotiations have taken place which, had they been completed, would have given Jarrett control of the ESPN slot, which would probably be the first decent thing to happen in this business in this hemisphere in a while as far as a lot of readers are concerned. At the same time, I've heard no reports verified that any sort of a deal has been completed.

Observer 11/16/1987

Observer: It appears right now that any negotiations for Jerry Jarrett to buy the AWA have fallen through, however this group is still trying to work on getting its tape on ESPN.

Your dad talked in his memoir and in shoot interviews about coming close to making a deal to buy the AWA circa 1989-1990 when he was flirting with going national after taking over Dallas, only for the deal to stall because Lil’ Man wouldn’t guarantee Greg Gagne a job as booker. But I don’t think he ever talked about there being any earlier talks, like here in late 1987. Was there anything to these rumors at all? If so, how far did the talks get? And if it was nonsense, where do you think the story came from?

Ron Fuller was also selling off the Alabama side of Continental at the time as well, albeit keeping the east Tennessee side of the territory for himself as USA Wrestling. Did he feel out your dad about buying the company at all? Or did he go straight for Montgomery TV station owner David Woods when he showed interest?

Observer 11/30/1987

Observer: The biggest story of the past week comes out of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania House State Government committee this past Wednesday made a recommendation that the state athletic commission be abolished. 

By this point, the Tennessee commission at least had stopped sanctioning wrestling, although Kentucky still did. Overall, how would you describe your experience dealing with athletic commissions in this era? Did they ever do anything that you felt helped the wrestlers or fans, or was it just a cash grab?

Though this was part of Titan’s larger push for deregulation, it didn’t actually work, only leading to some rule changes. The same basic thing can be said for the famous New Jersey hearings in 1989. From where you sat, how did it reflect on the WWF that they were exposing the business to avoid regulation, only for it to not even work in the biggest states they tried it in? (New Jersey wouldn’t deregulate until 1997, while Pennsylvania never did.)

Did your dad ever try to use his political connections to try to push out commission regulation? How did the Tennessee commission stop regulating wrestling in the early ‘80s, anyway?

Observer 12/21/1987

Observer: The biggest story is that Fritz Von Erich has sold the World Class promotion to a group headed by Ken Mantell. 

We’ve discussed all this in depth in the archives - but the wrestling world changed a whole lot in 1987 didn’t it?

Jeff, I’m guessing you learned about this a bit when your dad took over Dallas and you started working there regularly: What’s your understanding of how Ken Mantell got back in power as an “owner” after walking out, taking much of the crew with him, and basically running opposition 18 months earlier when they went to the UWF and the UWF moved into Dallas?

By the time your dad was contacted, was Mantell still in the picture at all, or was it basically just Kevin and Kerry?

Observer: They held a tournament on 12/7 in Memphis before 4,000 to unify all their singles titles with Jerry Lawler (Southern champion), Jeff Jarrett (Mid American champion) and Manny Fernandez (International champion). The tournament was to get rid of all the belts and declare a CWA champion (which is not a World title because they are still recognizing Curt Hennig as the World champion). The tournament opened with Lawler against Jarrett which was a babyface match until Lawler punched Jarrett, then Jarrett punched him back with both guys selling great and it wound up with Jarrett missing a dropkick off the top rope and getting pinned. Lawler then beat Fernandez via DQ to win the tournament when Fernandez destroyed Lawler's arm with a chair. The winner of the tourney was to get a shot at Hennig that same night, however with Lawler injured, he picked Jarrett to take his place and Hennig defended and pinned Jarrett when Fernandez interfered. 

The territory had the three singles titles for a long time, so why the change? Anything to do with wanting to deemphasize region sounding names like “Southern” and “Mid-American?” Regardless, why did it only last about a year before becoming the Southern Title again?

Observer 12/28/1987

Observer: As we enter 1988, there are a few trends from the last year to look back on. The inevitable evolution of this business continued. At this time last year, there were three "major league" promotions in the United States. 

The smaller promotions continued to have rough times. The AWA fell to depths unheard of, and now more than ever appears on the critical list. The Central States promotion is surviving with no name talent and miniscule paychecks. The CWA (Jarrett promotion) had a good run early in the year with Jerry Lawler's feud with Austin Idol and Tommy Rich, and even though business fell after that ran its course, it probably is the best model on how to run a localized promotion. 

How proud does it make you to see that, amidst all of this chaos, your dad’s territory where you were getting more and more of a push as the year went on was “probably is the best model on how to run a localized promotion” in North America?

All told, what did a promotion need to succeed in 1987, both on the local and national levels?

Where did you feel you were at in the business at the end of 87 head into 88?