Friday, April 11, 2014

NWA vs. WWE Head to Head Part 1

Being a huge wrestling fan that I am something I always wanted to talk about is the NWA vs. WWE. Notice how I said NWA because in this blog, I want to talk about 4 specific moments during the hayday of the 1980s, which literally was NWA vs. WWE on the same day at the same time. This was way before the Monday Night War even began.



1) Thanksgiving Day 1987-At the time the NWA always promoted Starrcade on Thanksgiving Night. Starrcade was what Wrestlemania is today. Now, Wrestlemania has more padgetry and glitz and glamour than Starrcade ever did but for the NWA it was there event. Starrcade started in 1983 and featured Ric Flair defeating Harley Race in a cage match to become World Heavyweight Champion for the second time. There was a sell out in the Greensboro Coliseum and Starrcade was on its way. After, Starrcade 86 which was held in Greensboro and Atlanta, at the Omni, what would Starrcade 87 bring? Change and lots of it. First off, Jim Crockett Promotions purchased the Universal Wrestling Federation in April 1987. Crockett would use that promotion to promote the NWA. The thing is was that all those television stations plus having a studio in Dallas and Atlanta cost money. To this day people look at this as the end of the NWA for a few reasons. One, they moved the show from Greensboro/Atlanta to Chicago, alienating the loyal Greensboro/Atlanta fanbases. Second, fans wanted to see the hometown Road Warriors win the tag team titles but that didnt happen, with a finish known as the "dusty finish." http://prowrestling.wikia.com/wiki/Dusty_Finish Third, production wise it seemed like the WWE Survivor Series was a fastly polished product. Fourth, and this is an argument to this day as to why Ron Garvin was the World Heavyweight Champion. Those 4 factors really contributed as to why Starrcade got beat on that day. Not to mention that the Survivor Series and Starrcade would be on at the same time which meant cable companies had to choose which one to air. The WWE threatened to pull WrestleMania 4 from the cable companies unless they show the Survivor Series. To the cable companies, it was a no brainer as Survivor Series won out.  I will say selfishly that I'm kind of glad this happened because I have enjoyed the Survivor Series from the very first one. The Survivor Series with there elmination rules was just so fantastic to watch. Tag team elmination matches, 5 on 5 where you strive to survive, having team captains for each team. That was never done before. Fans flocked to the Survivor Series as the WWE sold out the Richfield Coliseum in Richfield Ohio. The show which had a women's survior series  match, a tag team  survivor series match plus 3, 5 on 5 matches is well received because of what it started. The Survivor Series would stay on Thanksgiving Night until 1991 where it moved to Thanksgiving Eve. That would last until 1995 where they would tradionally move to the Sunday before Thanksgiving where they have been ever since. Starrcade, on the other hand, moved away from Thanksgiving the following year to the day after Christmas. Starrcade was never on Thanksgiving again up until WWE bought out WCW/NWA in March 2001.

Its debatable as to who had the better show. Some people to this day liked Starrcade because the NWA wasn't as cartoony as the WWE was at the time.  I mean fans just were loyal to the NWA over WWE and you could tell that the NWA and WWE were two big but different companies.  As cliched as it might sound, I think the true winners were the fans. If your a hardcore wrestling fan like myself, back then and even now you could enjoy not one great PPV but two of them. I think thats a pretty good deal. Too bad, we wont have those days again anytime soon.