re: Classic wrestling doc series "Tales From the Territories" coming Oct. 4

Mainly if you focus on Stampede after Dynamite Kid arrived.

They went from a big man territory with guys like Abdullah and Mongolian Stomper to Dynamite, Davey Boy, Owen, Bad News Allen / Brown, Bret, etc.

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Off the top of my head, guys who played big roles in Mid-South who are still around and could've been on the panel include...

Watts,
Jim Ross,
Dibiase,
Duggan,
Jake the Snake,
Jim Cornette,
Ricky Morton...

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Any doc about Mid South SHOULD have Watts, I'm just not expecting him. The people who run Vice are probably still triggered by his infamous interview with Wade Keller from over 30 years ago.
Another great one would be Michael Hayes (he's the one who "blinded" JYD in the Superdome) but I imagine he's too entrenched in WWE by now. Same thing with Terry Taylor.

50 min Cornette interview with the producers of the Show: LINK

Part of luck is being prepared.

Vince was able to read the landscape on his own but he also had Jim Barnett and Vince Sr advising him in the lead up to the national expansion starting in 1983.

Jim Barnett‘s influence in the business gets underplayed but he was on the ground floor for studio wrestling in the 50s, ran multiple territories in the US and internationally, and was a key employee for Vince, Crockett, and Turner at different times.


Vince may have had the plan but Jim Barnett was the one with the knowledge and the contacts to make it happen.

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Vince may have had the plan but Jim Barnett was the one with the knowledge and the contacts to make it happen.

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Well said. Which leads to what if scenarios like... what if Barnett and Ole Anderson had been able to coexist so he never got pushed out? It really is fascinating to see the dominoes that fell in place for the promoter with the biggest bankroll to go national at just the right time.

VICE really needs to do a show on the very first World Championship Wrestling, Barnett's promotion in Australia. At one point it was one of the biggest in the world.

Those two would never have coexisted for a long period IMHO.

Barnett, the Brisco brothers, and Paul Jones wanted to sell but Ole couldn’t or wouldn’t buy them out and he shite on any chance they had to sell out by telling potential buyers the earning potential wasn’t there. (They knew which markets were drawing high for the TBS show and knew the territory had national potential)


Ole being Ole is the reason for a lot of what spun out. He’s always been a hardheaded fricker and him being too hardheaded to deal with things has repeatedly bit him in the arse since the early 80s.

Some of the very best Rogan podcasts feature those old-time wrestlers telling some seriously crazy stories from their younger days. And Andre deserves his own episode. A true force of nature.

Schiavone told a great story on his podcast about Wahoo smacking the shite out of a woman in an Applebee’s who was giving him hell about his heel turn while he was trying to eat.

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And Andre deserves his own episode. A true force of nature.

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We've had standalone Andre docs, including the one by HBO and Bill Simmons 5 or 6 year ago, and it wasn't even as good as the old A&E Biography from the late 90s.

Simple fact is, how many times can you hear essentially the same Andre story over and over and over?

He couldn't fit anywhere. He was stronger than an elephant, he farted alot, he drank 900 beers and he was sad and then broke down. That's basically it.

I'd rather see an hour of Lawler and Kauffman or Mid South stories I have never heard before.

There are good ones out there if you know where to look.


Watts has a good one to illustrate how bad the economy was in Louisiana back around 1986-1987.

Before his Superdome shows, he would send his advance guy down to prepare things. Part of his routine was to call up an escort agency and arrange his own “entertainment” for the night.

For a show towards the end of the UWF’s life, he called up Watts and said “I can’t find a hooker!” “Watts said “Get your own fricking pussy!” The guy then explained that every escort agency in the New Orleans phone book had gone out of business. If people aren’t spending money on hookers in New Orleans, it means that people aren’t spending money on anything. Thus, he was afraid that the show they were about to hold was going to bomb.


Turned out to be right and it was why Watts and Jim Ross conned Jim Crockett into buying them out, as the oil states bottomed out economically at a time when Watts’ costs were skyrocketing due to expansion.