Today In Wrestling History 7/10: Ultimate Warrior's 1st WWF TV Match, No-Shows Take Their Toll, More
* 31 years ago in 1984, the WWF ran a TV taping at the Civic Center in Brantford, Ontario for the first time, as it was the new home of All-Star Wrestling, which was doubling as Maple Leaf Wrestling in Canada, To comply with Canadian TV regulations, they needed a show shot in Canada with a Canadian producer (Jack Tunney) and various Canadian talent (the local job guys fit the bill), so it made sense to move one of the syndicated shows to a Canadian venue.
At the same time, Championship Wrestling was about to moved to the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, New York. Due to production issues (I believe that there was an issue with moving TV production from KPLR in St. Louis to Video One in Baltimore), the taping schedule was a bit out of whack, so this taping was primarily for Championship Wrestling, at least in non-Canadian terms. The late Spring-early Summer period had a tapings out of sync (normally, All-Star and Championship were shot the same week) and a lot of recycled house show footage mixed in with stuff from older tapings until everything got back to normal.
As for the content of the taping, little of note happened, oddly enough. There was a somewhat famous edition of Piper's Pit, as it was the one where Roddy read a letter from Jimmy Snuka's son, and Hulk Hogan squashed Jerry Valiant in a rare TV match, but that was it.
* 28 years ago in 1987, the WWF ran three house shows with three separate crews in Providence, Rhode Island (C-show crew with Ken Patera vs. Hercules in the main event), Omaha, Nebraska (Hulk Hogan vs. Killer Khan), and Houston, Texas (Honky Tonk Man vs. Randy Savage and the Hart Foundation vs. Killer Bees advertised). The Houston show was taped for both local TV and recap shows, and is the most noteworthy for a couple other reasons.
The Ultimate Warrior, still as The Dingo Warrior just a few weeks into his run. made his TV debut, defeating Frenchy Martin in a match that aired on the "international" version of Wrestling Challenge. This was an entirely different show from the domestic one, mixing all sorts of matches, including a number of exclusives. As for Warrior, with fans increasingly conditioned to big physiques equalling talent, he was getting big pops with zero TV exposure, which is what led to him getting pushed to the moon so quickly.
Brian Blair no-showed, so Tito Santana took his place and teamed with Jim Brunzell against the Hart Foundation. Promoter Paul Boesch had switched allegiances from the UWF to the WWF in as soon as Bill Watts sold the UWF to Jim Crockett Promotions in April, and was quickly getting frustrated with the number of no-shows on his cards. It likely wore extra thin since the WWF was running Houston every three weeks or so, as evidenced by the small crowd of 1,460 fans. He decided it wasn't worth ruining his good name in Houston, and two shows later in August, he retired with a special card full of outside talent.
* 27 years ago in 1988, Jim Crockett Promotions brought the Great American Bash to pay-per-view for the first time, as they broadcasted live from the Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland. At the time, the show was an especially big deal because it was the first Crockett PPV distributed by Turner Home Entertainment. Their first two PPVs, Starrcade '87 and The Bunkhouse Stampede, without Turner involved, saw opposition from the WWF with the first annual Survivor Series (on PPV) and Royal Rumble (on USA Network) shows. Turner distributing the show meant the cable companies were more willing to fight off a WWF effort to strong-arm against a potentially big money show. The show was a big success live, selling out or coming close, and did a strong 190,000 buys on PPV.
The main event was the first singles match between Ric Flair and Lex Luger for Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Luger had been in the Four Horsemen, but was kicked out when he wouldn't eliminate himself to lt manager J.J. Dillon win a battle royal. He started heating up as a babyface, teamed with Barry Windham to win the tag titles from Horsemen Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard...and then Windham turned on him. His focus moved to Flair, with the Windham issue not actually focused on or blown off until 1989. Which was fine because the Flair match was where the money was.
They had a great match, but the finish is what everyone talks about. The Maryland State Athletic Commission had the right to stop a match for bleeding. JCP made sure to tell the commission they were OK and to be ready. Luger bladed, but he got Flair up in the Human Torture Rack, and right as it looked like Flair would submit, the bell rang. The crowd went completely insane, thinking that Luger won the title, but no, he was losing on a blood stoppage. The big problem was that Luger didn't get much color and the fans didn't necessarily blame the commission, That said, the rematches at house shows did great business. It was a fine finish to book to set up house show rematches, but fell flat as a PPV ending.
Also on the show, Ron Garvin turned heel. First, he competed in the Tower of Doom match, a complicated three tiered cage match that was incredibly unremarkable on PPV except for the post-match angle that involved the babyfaces having to maneuver through the cages to save Precious from Kevin Sullivan. As for the turn, Barry Windham was defending the United States Championship against Dusty Rhodes (in one of Dusty's last truly great singles matches) when Garvin ran in and decked Dusty. It turned out he had been paid off by J.J. Dillon and Gary Hart. This didn't last long, as the promotion was in bad financial shape: Garvin quit, Dusty went on TV claiming to have maimed him in a street fight, and then he promptly showed up on AWA TV un-maimed.