Ep. 360: NWA Bunkhouse Stampede 1988 (Part 1)

It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and carn Seo and JP Sorrows the
LAPS fans get all my ears rustling like you never seen anything like it,
And it's the laps Fan name of the one in the ring to get about
the sorrow with the real king of swing with the bell goes name to kick
like me throne in the corner, but a splash like stay even Jerry King
could say, go off the crown, nodding his head like hiss d low
brown, which you get low down, go even high up, flip you
on your head. But you know, coul Driver, you speaking more outge
dragon spits fire, keep you more shocked than a head treat hire drop a
more truth than the kind of snupber less you with a cooking Roddy pipe fer
checking JPD like j y D drop the cupcakes Ago the grain bar means the
best podcast fun start to close round if y'all be so. We talked about
the very first televised Yal Rumble Inch nineteen eighty years the fast time we were
with you here on the Lapsed Fan, and a key part of understanding that
event is that it basically right was created to fuck with Jim Crockett. Like
most things Vince did in the mid to late eighties aren't the good old days,
and so what exactly was it Vince was fucking with? We of course
alluded to it, but it made a lot of sense to follow on our
Royal Rumble eighty eight coverage with the show that was unmoored by the record cable
television rating for a free Sunday night special in the USA network. That was
the Royal Rumble. To talk about the show that it disrupted. It was
the Bunk House Stampede January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty eight, Nassau Coliseum,
Long Island, New York. You heard it right, Jim Crockett Promotions and
wa running in New York on pay per view. In some ways, you
can call it Crockett's first pay per view because, as we talked about,
the nineteen eighty seven Starkaden Theory was on pay per view. But by the
time Vince had his way with the cable companies and put up Survivor series Head
to Head really wasn't available to buy in most markets in this country because Vince
gave them an ultimatum with all the leverage of WrestleMania three at his back.
I want to say, I want to say something that is it's totally it's
totally a meme, and it is maybe elitist in some way and whatever.
But you know, you didn't even need to say that this show took place
in the Northeast because all you had to do was look at the crowd.
And they're actually attractive people at these shows. Come on, they look at
I'm sorry, you know, you know I said, I said, it's
rude, it's awful, But come on, we've seen we've seen our fair
share of of of Southern wrastling crowds during this time period, and they're not
fun to look at. Well, I'll tell you they had some opportune cutaways
at their disposal during this show. To guess, some very eighties looking,
you know, twenty somethings in the crowd undoubtedly looking to you know, I
mean, we're not you know, there were no women. Put it this
way, there were no women, you know, with mullets and beer goggle
glasses like we've seen in the southern shows. Right. Well, there's more
of a more of a front row fervor and some of those traditional seven wrestling
markets where those first several rows are always going to be taken up by the
wrestling lifers, especially in you know, hardcore wrestling buildings like the Greensboro Coliseum
that was the home base of Jim Crockett Promotions for the twenty two lifers,
right, whereas here one of their first forays, not their very first,
but one of their first forays into the New York market, their first.
For a big televised event like this, you probably will get some folks that
otherwise, you know, don't typically attend wrestling, and there's not like a
first three rows whole hard camera mounted for by the hardcore right when it comes
to turning out for for n WA wrestling at the time. But yeah,
you know, certainly there were plenty of twenty somethings turning out hoping to choke
on Horseman Cock at the Helmsley Palace. That's right, come on now there
it would be uh uh, there was a Marriott right across the way from
from from the coliseum. That there was. But fortunately we actually know the
hotel that the wrestlers stayed out for this show because it turned out to be
the site of some historically significant banter about whether the booking range of Dusty Rhodes
should be aborted with with with all due haste. There was a lot of
a lot of post gaming on this one because this is one of the biggest
unmitigated disasters ever in terms of the business. This is awful, This is
this is really I mean it should be called rough House Stampede. I asked
you a question picture sitting down January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty eight, going
through all the rigamarole it took to order a pay per view in nineteen eighty
eight to do it, and this is what you got, thoughts. I
mean, I mean, listen, you know, if we're talking nineteen eighty
eight and I'm seven years old, I probably would have found reasons to like
it. I'm sure I would have, because I would do that. I
found reasons to like WrestleMania eleven. I found reasons to like Summer Slam ninety
five. Besides, you know the ladder match, so you know, as
a kid, you get your blinders on, so I can imagine, I
can actually imagine being somewhat intrigued or enthralled by a Battle Royal that involved people
being tossed over a cage to be eliminated. I can. I can see
that with myself, because I was my imagination like was so out of control,
Like I probably, honestly, you know what, I probably fucking booked
one in my Hasbro universe. Sure, you know, I you know,
because I made like a you know I made I made a steel cage out
of some kind of wire and stuff, and I'm sure I had some kind
of weird cage match that involved people having to go over. It sounds like
something I would come up with, like my weird fucking tag matches, that
I would have my my weird elimination tag matches where you had to eliminate.
This is what I would do, I'm not I'm not kidding. I would
have a tag team, right, and the only way to win was to
have your team pin both partners in a row. So like if if team
won pinned team two, and then team two pinned team one, team one
would have to pin twice again. And if you're waiting for me to say
I really like that idea, no, I really liked that idea. Actually,
yeah, all right, they haven't tried that one yet. No,
no, But like you can kind of disrupt, you can disrupt the score
talian right by eating. It's like, it's kind of like if you will
like the the the mentality of a strap match by touching. Sure the thing.
It's not best, but it's first two straight falls too, right,
exactly best two street yeah, yeah, first two straight falls like you can
have pinfall. I'd have pinfalls going crazy like galore. I think I did
a couple of these with the Steiner Brothers and money incorporated. So all right,
I will grant you that you know, your impressionable young wrestling mind could
have been intrigued to check out a Battle Royal advertised as the bunk how Stampede
was. But by the time it was over, would you have been satisfied
as a young wrestling fan based on the way it played out? Yes,
because I was always about a baby face winning. I don't care who it
was. Now Listen, if I was one of those twenty year olds,
now if I ordered this, if this have then happened, say in in
like two thousand and eight, a whole different story, different story. And
I think what's important to remember is a key distinction between WWF and JCP at
the time was that the profile of the audience was, you know, it's
all all the kids are watching WWF because of the toys and the cartoon,
and I'll watch it. Uh, they're not watching in as great numbers.
I mean, I don't know this for absolute sure. I'm sure plenty of
kids watched you know, JCP on TBS and stuff, but it's it's very
obvious to me that they skewed older, significantly older in talk at least who
turned out at the Nassau Coliseum. I don't remember seeing hardly any keys on
camera. I mean it always felt like that anyway, like because it was
right the whole idea with it being a little more violent, a little more
edgy, you know like that that yeah, and that was the key sort
of distinction with wrestling fans in the eighties to two. It was like if
you were into NWAWCW, if you were if you were in the Rick Flair
camp, you were into a wrestling that was, you know, more mature
and harder, raged and sort of you know, more respectful of what wrestling
has always been. Where Camp Carnival dressed up for a for a new,
young, impressionable audience. What do you mean, brother, what are you
talking about Rick Flair camp? Dude? Are you singing at a Camp Brother
Camp WWE. But all that to be said is that there's a reason that
by the time it's over, you can audibly hear on this pray Pay broadcast
infamously fans in the Nassau Colisseum chanting refund so loudly that it gets picked up
as a Jim Ross and Bob Coddle are doing sort of a post show wrap
up. And that's for many reasons, including the fact that there was tremendous
confusion over which time the show actually began, so that for a lot of
people that turned out to this event at the Nassau Colisseum, they basically just
got like an hour of wrestling and the show is over because they showed up
at a time the earliest printed tickets indicated they should have, which was eight
o'clock, when really they should have showed up at six thirty because that's when
the first dark watch when the shit and so come nine o'clock, the show
is over and these people basically got an hour of wrestling. That that's pretty
much the reason assigned to why there's a refund chant not so much the fact
that Dusty Rhodes went over, which is a whole other song with of course,
which I mean we'll have our way with on this episode. And and
you know, I mean, I'm sure you're going to get into this as
well. But I when I was watching it, and I went into the
you know, they were talking about previous bunk House Stampede matches, and I
go and I go back and and look at the other at the stats for
the other ones, and realize that Dusty won all of them. Yes,
what the fuck? Well, I mean, the reason is very simple.
It's because he's the bull of the woods. Now, what isn't simple is
explaining what the fuck that is supposed to mean in four and two thou twenty
three. He's the bull of the shit, is what he Yeah, he's
the bullshit of the woods, right, And we're gonna get into why here
on this episode, because this was it for Dusty. I mean, certainly
he kept the book for a little while longer, but it's pretty the time
is nigh, where Jim Crockett finally throws his hands up, Turner moves into
buy, Dusty gets I guess you could say his time is up. His
time is nigh, correct, His time is nigh. That's correct. And
Dusty, you know, has a fit and leaves and books and angle where
the road Warriors hit him with a spike despite the edict remember that there'd be
no blood on the turnaround w CW. And so he gets fired and goes
to WWF. But this his decision. How can you sit there and endorse
a product when they simply lie. They said they're not going to have any
blood on their television. And look what this guy does on his on his
you know, I'm gonna write letters to to to to parent FCC, parent
organizations, and then I'll tell you what I'm gonna hire that guy, give
me Dusty Rhodes. Yeah, that's, of course the most delicious part of
the story, which of course we'll get to as well. But bunk House
Damp eighty eight remembered for all the wrong reasons watching it back, there's no
redeeming qualities to it whatsoever. So awful that Dusty sat down and thought that
many non finishes on a pay per view and they to service the customer is
a permanent indictment on his booking ability. He was a good booker for a
little period of time, but so were a lot of people. How hardcore
the mistakes are when you start losing momentum, and his were epic. I
mean, I guess, I guess Rick Flair versus Hawk was fine on paper
and the match was okay because you know, but if you have that's the
finish you have to give people. What are you doing putting the match on
the show? Guys? I know this is pay per view, Dusty.
This isn't like, let's do a finish so that you know, in our
minds the guys who are is hot the next time they come to the town.
This is pay per view. This isn't an arena show. This isn't
a house show that my mom's show. And you know, the previous punk
house stampedes that you just mentioned, those were house shows. They weren't on
television. They were promoted on television move tickets, but they weren't television presentations.
And so I think Dusty just failed to reimagine the punk house stampede of
ND you could have stopped it failed? What's that you could have stopped it?
Failed? Yeah, to reimagine the concept for the pay per view medium,
you know, and sort of what how that shifts the expectations of the
people watching the matches in terms of like, no, we actually get conclusive
finishes. That's what pay per view is. I mean that's the thing too.
I mean you may bring up an excellent point, because I sit there
and it feels like a house show. It is right, like that's exactly
what it feels like. I think they got the wind taken so out of
their sales by how Starkade eighty seven was gutted as a pay per view proposition
that they were just we gotta do something, we gotta get on the air
list. We got a New York date to circle on the calendar. Here
circled on the calendar. I should say, let's make that the pay per
view without any actual you know, because they didn't have a lot of time
after the Thanksgiving star Kake I turned around to start really getting programs hot Jr.
I said, you know on this podcast about this this event, that
they just had no momentum that there was something you could point to that was
must see a resolution they could put in front of the people that everyone was
was was thirsting four at the time. You know, coming off Starcake,
you're you're you're cold. You know that that's that's your peak of the year,
and so they're going to put this on, so you know, only
a couple of months later there is Yeah, there's nothing, there's nothing really
interesting. Yep. And yeah, the fact that Dusty won them all.
I mean this is like, this is like if Hull Cogan won the ninety
two Rumble. I mean not even I'm gonna say like, not even Hogan
won a rumble on until nineteen ninety. But but if he won ninety you
think in ninety great, you know, it's a wonderful show. Ninety one,
great, wonderful show. Hogan wins again. But if he wins again
in ninety two, and it's it's supposed to be a bigger one for the
title and it's not, you know, a pay per view for this case,
it is supposed to be a bigger one than the usual. You expect
something more, You expect something a twist, you expect something landmark, not
just a repeat of the last two years. I mean, I know you
would have loved it, but what would be talking about the nineteen ninety two
Yal Rumble is the greatest rumble of all time today of Hogan one absolutely not
no chance I would be but uh, you know, and here. You
have it here. You had a chance to make the match means something different
when the spotlight was really bright, and he just didn't do it because he's
the bullow the woods or whatever the fuck. And we'll hear his reasoning,
Dusty's reasoning as we go here. People were very attuned and sensitive to this
at the time. I mean, Dusty was you know, he was not
knocking him dead in any way. When you looked at the business metrics,
you know he was. He was putting himself in positions to define the product
when you know every day, every data point would have told you that that
time has passed. You know that that's not working, and he kept doing
it. So you can see with the frustration in the locker room starts horse
boil. So it's all here. It's the Bunkhouse Stampede nineteen eighty eight.
A great a great show for us to cover, one that I felt like
it would probably be hard to get to a reason to cover. I thought
maybe a copper person would pick it at some point, right, or just
you know, a random show to pick right. But here, uh,
if you're tuning into television at the time, is what you would have heard
in terms of the selling points for this bunk House Stampede pay per view and
the town right of Live Something January twenty four and the showdown to New York,
the third annual bunk House Stampede Final is more than turnment of the top
NWA wrestlers, Only the roughest, only the toughest will be left standing at
the end, and the payoff one half million bucks for a bootfull of dollars.
These cowboys will do anything. Everything goes, anything goes. Don't miss
it. See us do what we do. Miss double team, triple team
the finals of the bunk House Damped, the baddest of the match duty will
be a mac and dreaming out here to day. They ain't nothing as bad
as the bunk House Dampeede, and that's only one way that you can get
the bunk House dempets. So I want you to enough depth. Children.
For more information on how to order the bunk House Stampede Championships in your own
home, on January twenty fourth, call your local cable company. I'm good.
What did Dusty say? There's nothing as bad as the bunk House Damped.
He's not wrong, so we're wrong, you know, And that's a
funny thing too, Like they make such a big deal out of this as
being this this, this, even fucking Caddle. Even Caddle at one point
callses the most dangerous fucking match, and I'm like, really, it's more
dangerous than war games, not even close, not even close. This is
a bitch. This last time on the Rumble Show, when we talked about
the fact that w WOF was already running this has always forgotten in this history
of bunk house dampede was already running bunkhouse battle royals of their own, mocking
right the bunk house concept, because what Coddle's talking about is what he had
seen to date, or what NB had put forward to date, which is
bunk house stampedes where people came to the ring with all manner of weapons,
and the bunkhouse stampede was not just a battle royal, it was also like
a weapons match, and everyone you know, came dressed in jeans and cut
off shirts, ready to brawl childboy boots to you know, split people's heads
open and stuff like that. But here because of the cage element that that
was never part of bunkhouse stampedes prior. It's not like every bunkhouse stampede was
in a cage here Suddenly the punkhouse stampede concept is there's no weapons. Really,
people are just getting in there and fighting. Yeah, it's very,
very stupid and all the backward psychology. It sounds good to throw someone over
the top of the cage. Then you think like, wait a minute,
how are you going to do that? Right? Why would they why why
would they go up there? Right? It looks so fake when they do
it, and most of them are out the door anyway, which is hardly
as dramatic, and they didn't even they don't place to a tend dis degree
that someone's gonna get thrown out of a cage, right, And it's the
same thing as you know, it's to me, it's the same thing as
a scaffold match. You're never going to see what you really want to see,
all right, because no one's going to take that kind of risk,
like you don't want to see something Like, no one's actually gonna like get
thrown over the top of the cage like you want them to, because they
don't want to get hurt. Yeah, that's right, And you know that's
the thing too, that's it right there. If you can't fucking make if
you can't do a match, if there's a match that requires a major ass
stunt that no one is willing to do, don't do the match's corrects.
Just over every hell in the cell match, you know, right right?
Totally? No, I mean he has to he has to do something ridiculous.
Everyone has to do something ridiculous. Not until Shane was willing to put
it all on the line to try to make his dad love him. Did
anybody come along and do what people got animated by when they hurt Helen a
cell? Who's his dad? That's correct, disowned son? Didn't Caesar have
one of those two one he didn't acknowledge as his own son. I believe
he did. I did. And of course you think Dusty right when he
got the book at TNA, what's he doing lethal lockdown or all cage match
pay per views? When he thinks big show pay per view, he thinks
put it in a cage, it'll be fine. And of course lethal Lockdown
was basically an in cage weapons filled battle royal kind of the same thing.
And we know how awesome that is from the recent TNH journey. So it's
just it's it's it's not going to work, and it's just very important that
this whole timing thing it was. It was made known really the night of
the show, and it was the talk of the show afterwards, in the
talk of the locker room that like, these people that bought tickets to this
thing early were totally fucked over because their tickets said to show up at eight
and the matches started ended up starting at like quarter to seven or something like
that. So you know, people show up and get hardly any of a
show and they get dusty going over, which I'm not sure they were,
you know, really would have been as mad about if they got three and
a half hours of wrestling beforehand. But it's like you didn't even get something
impactful at the end. You didn't even get like someone breaking through or something
a novelty or anything like that. So it was it was bad. This
was in Pro Wrestling, illustrated after the event. The year comes to an
end at midnight December thirty one, but the effects of nineteen eighty eight will
be felt long afterwards. Blah blah blahm okay headline the NA fails at the
Nassau Coliseum. Wow, this is in the Kfave Aftermags the magazine holy shit,
you know, just like jumped into bed with Jim Crockett. When Vince
Junior took over and banned their photographers and writers from ringside primarily pissed them off
to the point there was like, you know, just an absurd bias towards
UH Crockett wrestlers and NBA wrestlers in terms of who got the cover, who
got the Wrestler of the Year awards, all that shit. You know,
Fucking Dusty Rhodes would go on TBS every week and thank Bill Apter after had
a television segment on TV. It was, you know, for them to
go at in this hard was a was a sign of like, we're doing
this for you, We're calling you out for your own good, not just
to be assholes. The NWA fails at the Nassau policy and the NWA's were
turned to the New York Metropolitan Area. Lasted only five months and may have
destroyed any hopes for a future return, although the debut card last November.
Yeah, Dot's not forget I was going to get to this. The first
time they ever ran New York was not this event. That is to say,
Jim Crockett promotions. The first time they ran was November of nineteen eighty
seven, and they did a very healthy crowd. Really yeah, or what
so what happened? Uh? Well, I mean they came back with a
show that people weren't that interest in. You A respectable number of people turned
out for this show. But you watched the pay per view, you know
what happened. Fucking watch it. Although the debut card last November drew a
promising crowd, things steadily worsened. The Bunkhouse Stampede card in late January began,
depending on which tickets you held a half hour or a full hour before
the time listed on the ticket. The card itself lasted barely two hours and
left a sour taste in the mouths of many fans. The NWA never did
recover, nor did it ever again draw over ten thousand fans to the Colosseum.
Because of the Colosseum's decision to book n WA cards, the WWF pulled
out of Nassau for several months and didn't return until this past October, and
doing so, the ww have delivered a clear message to Colosseum officials. If
you want us, you can't have them, and after the NWA's failures,
the Colosseum's decision was an easy one. We'd also be foolish to think that
the hierarchy at Madison Square Garden, sitting only twenty miles away in the heart
of Manhattan, wasn't watching this experiment. Have we seen the last of the
NWA in New York, the most lucrative sports market in the country. Now
we pretty much hid. They certainly came back. I can try it again.
But yeah, yeah, there was actual hope that this was, you
know, Crockett's CounterPunch to Vince closing in on their on their towns and their
circuits, and not so much the nwas. I mean, they certainly tried
to go in some Crockett markets and had some success. Baltimore was heavily contested,
for instance, in towns in Virginia and such, and it's not like
they totally avoided North Carolina. But no one had any high expectations for those
markets. But here you have Crocketts saying, all right, this is a
national battle. Let let's go right in any New York. Let's put our
better wrestlers and better matches in there, and let's you know, leave the
wrestling fan with the impression that we're the place to go if you want real
wrestling, the kind of wrestling that you know, you went to see Bruno
do in the sixties or whatever the fuck. So this was sort of like
their attempt to be national. I mean, I didn't I didn't go,
you know, I was didn't see Bruno. But I don't think I don't
think that Bess would have been I don't think Bruno would have done this.
No, now you would. You would have gone home pretty satisfied. Yeah,
yeah, right, kick somebody's ass. He would. He would have
kick some ass. And you know, Dusty kick does here too. It's
it's kind of ironic. He basically does do here what Bruno would do,
except the fans. It's not like everyone showed up to see Dusty kick ass.
People showed up to see the alternative wrestling product put their best foot forward.
They almost certainly showed up more to see Rick Flair alive in action in
the New York market than they did to see Dusty, for instance, And
that was one of the big things that Meltzer would to cry. And the
observer at the time was that, like, they're just don't have the courage
to turn Rick Flair baby face, but it's very clear that he's the only
shot they have at a champion that can actually define the brand, and everybody
wants to cheer him. People are sick of booing him. They're sick of
him getting fucking knocked around for forty five minutes and escaping by the skin of
his teeth and yet still be the only real wrestler they care about in the
company. But they just didn't didn't turn baby face. Flair don want to
do it. Of course, come eighty nine after the just by Jim hurdon
well by Turner and Jim Hurd getting put into power Flare does have a wonderful
baby face run in nineteen ninety nine, a legendary one, but I tries
to undo it as quickly as he can. At the same time, because
he wasn't the best man on the world limit, he didn't want to be
a baby face, never did, so that's that. Plus there was a
string of no shows on the card, which we'll talk about, and that
wasn't just an issue for this market, and this event is what happened.
That's the problem. He wasn't right, but they were having a lot of
trouble with that in a lot of towns, no shows. As they pushed
into these new markets. They're trying La, They're trying big time markets.
They're doing Dallas. Of course, after buying the u WF the Bill Watts
Company in nineteen eighty seven and moving the Jim Crockett Promotions offices from Charlotte to
Dallas, they start to try to make a push and set down roots in
Texas. Jim Ross, who of course came with the purchase and who calls
this bunkhouse stampede event with Bob Coddle, actually bought a house in Plano,
Texas and within like five months had to sell it at yes yes, yes,
yes, yes. Jimmy Crockett was talking himself into saying that being in
Dallas made him a bigger deal and made them more polished from a standpoint of
trying to make a national push into non JCP markets. And you started insisting,
just like the Bridge trying to copy events, that everybody live in the
sort of the area around the office. And then Turner buys the thing and
now everyone's got to move to Atlanta, So fucking what a joke. Under
the same guys, Yeah, yeah, really really a joke when you consider
that all this stuff is happening, all this window dressing stuff is happening,
those money's being spent, and there's no plan to make the wrestling more interesting,
right, right, to invigorate the actual thing that sells tickets and makes
people watch the TV. Nah, who means that shit? And as we'll
get to it basically comes down to the fact that Jim Crockett had no ability
to see past sty in terms of what could be a who could be a
successful booker for his company. You know, he just he was swept up
by the magic Dusty brought in eighty three and eighty four. Well, you
know, I am Dusty's just brought. He just keeps on bringing it.
Yep. So how how could I you know, you know what they say,
you know, don't fix you know, no point fixing something that it
ain't broke. Yeah, exactly, Jim, I don't. I don't not
mean, I just look at I look at look dust just it just keeps
on bringing the goods. So I don't. I don't, I don't,
I don't. I don't see what's the problem. Don't fix something if it
ain't broke, just fix it. When you are broke. That's that's kind
of a well, uh what right, exactly my sentiments. So it's basically
an unwillingness from you know, for Dusty his supercard, you know, last
Angle in Tampa, st Arcade Mega event formula worked beautifully before Vince Junior decided
to define what a major league wrestling product looked like with production values and infrastructure
that you know, Crockett could never match because as much as Crockett took the
national TV slot and pushed into New York in LA and big markets, he
never sort of upgraded the core in terms of like who's in the office,
who's running production, how many editing facilities do we have? None? They
had to do everything lives to tape because they had no editing base. According
to Tony Schivanni, and he knew the contrast because he went to work for
WWF in nineteen eighty nine and took a look at what they had and was
like, holy shit, copying, how was Crockett even putting a wrestling show
out that was you know, sort of presentable in the marketplace without this kind
of equipment and resources. It's not Klondike bill on on payroll. Although you
know, there's not to say Klondike Buil didn't do a good job. He
stayed employed. These are all good old boys that worked for you fucking father.
You know, yeah, I did a fine job doing that because you
know, I'll tell you how I know I did a fine job of that
because every time I went back to home, I was able to afford bringing
a woman back with me to sit up on table. Exactly right, that's
exactly right, bring into the table as they say, oh oh, oh,
he was Did you hear your mama sound like that? Whoa, whoa,
It's a lot. Parlors were fine, but Klondike Bill really got excited
when they legalized the table games in his and that is to say he he
lays on his back underneath the glass table and has a woman ship on the
table while charps off. Can you do? Is that allow? We're about
to find out, Bill, what would you do for a Klondike Bill?
Uh? What what would you do for a bill that actually is delivered on
when you buy your ticket and show up to the building. Here's Tony Schavani's
in this podcast covering this show, talking about the reaction of the fans when
they realized that the show is already over, and I remember the talk being
about, you know, these tickets. These tickets are incorrect, both of
them, the one that says eight o'clock is wrong, the one that says
seven o'clock is wrong. And we're gonna start at six thirty. And I
remember someone saying, well, they're just getting some bonus stuff, and I
remember thinking, they're not getting bonus stuff. They'll get here and they'll think
they've been fucked out of something that they paid for, which is what they
basically what they were. And I remember, distinctly, because I was a
ring announcer, the booing that you heard at the end of it was not
necessarily because that Dusty had won, Because I think dust he had a lot
of his fans, and I think that's he got a very big pop that
night. I think it was because this event was all of a sudden over
and a lot of the people got there at eight o'clock when we saw an
hour's worth of stuff and miss some good shit, or what they thought was
good shit at that time. The opposite wasn't over. That's the problem.
That's correct. JJ Dillon was, of course number two to Dusty in terms
of the booking regime. He would handle, you know, cards much lowered
down cards. Dust the dust he didn't care about, you know, preliminary
feuds and matches and towns. And also, you know, they absorbed Florida
Championship Wrestling and they're still running like Florida's specific house shows with different crews during
the course of this time. They're also running shows with a lot of the
u WF guys in old mid South towns that aren't even JCP shows. They're
just like other things that Dusty is pretending he can keep track of and intend
to. And Dylan also was responsible for things like you know, timing the
show and all of that. So Dylan was also party to the disaster this
thing was. And he did a timeline conversation with Sean Oliver at KFB Commentaries
about this particular night, and here's what he remembers about all this band.
And you want to expand everywhere, and it wasn't a question of you know,
going into the heart of somebody else's territory. But when you when you
have a national television show like the TBS program that went everywhere, it was
seen everywhere, and you have to think in terms of being a national promotion,
maybe a worldwide promotion, but national at that point, and where Crockett
started as an a mid Atlantic territory and then a little by little started branching
out these other places major markets. New York is a major market eventually to
be perceived as a true national promotion, it's hard not to say, well,
you know, I want to make have a presence in New York.
Now, maybe you can't get into Madison Square Garden. That's what it's gonna
would they not, because Vince was running the omni, It would seem only
it makes sense that they would try to put the stake in the hardpack onto
the garden. But would you have some kind of have some kind of exclusivity
with them. Exclusivity is a very bad word to use. You should never
use exclusivity because you can you can you could challenge that on legal grounds.
But Vince was a very smart man, and he had a man named Ed
Cohen who was booking the arenas. And because they had longevity in running major
buildings, their logic as presented to the building was look, I'm a regular
repeat customer and we're in this together, and we we've done well in the
past. We want to continue to do well. And the only thing I'm
saying is we don't want another very similar product to come in, say,
six weeks to two months before our date. And by the same token,
we don't want a competing product to come in six weeks to two months or
whatever the time frame was after just to give us that distance. Well,
I forget the exact terminology that they use prime tenant, and so it's a
kind of a concession that you would give to a guy that's that's a regular
customer. Yeah, you don't want to get sued, and here's a new
guy, and you want to give him a chance, but you also want
to take care of somebody who's who's done good business with you over a long
period of time. So that window of exclusion on both sides kept. Vince
was running the garden every three weeks, so there were no dates in the
guard because he had a prime tenant status. What was the company's initial reaction
to was there any kind of well going up to New York? Now?
Was it? Was it a big deal to the talent. I don't think
as big a deal to the talent. I equate a lot of things to
baseball. You know, they talk about, you know, the Yankee Red
Sox rivalry, and I think the media and maybe the fans get more revved
up. Not that the players don't think those encounters are important. They do.
But except for maybe a few isolated individuals, it's not a hate hate
thing. We're all in the business together. But there is a pride factor,
you know. It's like, well, you know they're there and they're
doing well. I'm here and doing well, and if I can go up
there and do well too, that says something about my value in the industry
as a whole. So a lot there, But I think one of the
keys honed in on is you know, the arena exclusivity and how bad a
word it is to use exclusivity, yep, because you can't really put on
paper that you can't book any other wrestling company in this building because it's you
know, you run into antitrust concern. It's like, right, it was
actually really impinging someone else's ability to compete in the marketplace. However, and
I think the Pro Wrestling Illustrated snippet we read puts it even better than JJ
does in his exposition there, like, look, that's fine, we can't
tell you to not let JCP in, but we can tell you we're not
coming back if you do, right, And that's what it appears. W
WF did is I see there's actually a date that's flashed on the marquee at
the Nassau Coliseum during Bunk House Stampede. You only see it in a couple
of frames, but if you squint, it's advertising a February, a late
February return to the Nassau Coliseum and just as wrestling, and I was like,
wow, are they actually advertising a WWF card in the on the big
screen or whatever on the the thing, Oh my god, But they weren't.
It was it was a JCP event, which might bolster the notion that
Vince, you know, said all right, fine, you guys are gonna
let them in. We'll see you later. We'll be at the garden.
You know, if you don't, if you don't value us enough to write.
But the closest you can get to writing that down is, you know,
six weeks of this way or that way, prime tenant status, all
this shit, and so you know, with the amount of lead time you
need to make a decision on a building. And the nature of the war
was such that you're making decisions in real time. Like the Royal Rumble,
as we talked about last time. I mean it was basically decided on a
month out from the show, which is insane. Which is insane, you
know, do a live television special of that caliber and importance to them with
so little notice just sort of speaks to the urgency of the time they're especially
on the wwfside, trying to respond to demand for their product. They're not
even pushing it out there. They're not even deciding on their own to do
something and then shopping it around. They're being told, we need something because
this thing does such great ratings for us, from the Slammies to Rumble to
the NBC specials. It's like, you need, we need this, and
it's like, okay, well, let's scramble to set up a tent somewhere
so that we have something to do for this date. And so in that
kind of an environment, you're never going to have enough time to consider.
Okay, let's make sure we're six weeks out from the next time they come
to New York before we try to book. Say, it's like, do
you never have that much lead time in an environment and an atmosphere like this,
Right, So I thought that was an important point that he made.
But also so j JJ, how did it work out? You know,
you did get to New York with the ticket thing? This date is notable
because this Bunkhouse Stampede pay per view is going up against WWE's first Royal Rumble,
which they give away for free on USA basically to counter the pay per
view that was announced prior. So with them going head to head like that,
did Crockett do anything to prevent Vince's free program from being given away on
the date that they had a pay per view? Where is there basically nothing
you can do if somebody has that TV time, probably nothing that you could
brother is something that you can do. The what ultimately happens, I mean,
it's it's a competitive environment. Everybody's trying to you know, protect their
own turf, protect what they have. But the other thing that happens too
in the television industry, the television industry doesn't want to get into a situation
where they're involved in a war. The pay per view company wants to see
every pay per view do incredibly well. So I'm I bet you there was
more pressure within the television executive area with you know, this is what I
normally expect to do with a pay per view, and this is what I
did while you're airing this. You know, hey, what are you doing?
You know? And a lot of times the decisions weren't that simple because
you have strong personalities and they're they're both trying to take that next big step
forward. But the television industry doesn't like to see things like that where and
that's why they As time went on, you saw less and less of that,
and people would move pay per view dates, so you didn't you never
you wouldn't have two major pay per views competing with each other on the same
night, because the pay per view people are are more of the ultimate losers.
Yeah, and that's ultimately we called the truce was the cable industry stepping
in and saying shit like because I forget, you know, the cable industry
made money on these pay per views. This is a huge revenue stream for
them. Then you know, right, of course you're paying your cable provider
for this. They don't even have to split it in the same way with
like an ESPN or whatever, you know channel that they're paying to retransmit,
right, So they're not fucking around, like this is their wallet that you're
harming by playing your little games. And so basically, by WrestleMania five,
when they countered with the Clash special, that was what was a flair funk?
I think it was no no, it was something no no. That
was steam boat which one oh and wrestle Mania five. Yeah, yeah,
that was the two out of three false teamboat flair match in New Orleans.
Yeah, that's pretty much the last time that a tape of view event from
one or the other was countered with a live television special by the other guys.
And that's classic jconp big Brother getting Big Brother Like at n WAWCW Big
Brother like, Okay, we're gonna do it to you. And by that
point Vince has already won. It's like I had, you know, put
Flair Sting against WrestleMania four, put a Flair Steamboat against WrestleMania five. It'll
be fine because I've already proven to the pay per view providers that when push
comes to shove, they need my show more than they need yours. Would
they like to have both on different nights they could collect as much money as
possible. Yes, yes, of course, but you're not harming me by
doing your live show. You're not. And eventually, as we've talked about
when we covered that clash, the cable company said enough, like you guys
need to stop doing this, or like it's going to be difficult for you.
I'm putting words in their mouth, but I'd imagine the implied leverage.
What's it's going to be difficult to you to schedule what you'd like to schedule
if we keep having to worry about you? You know? Yeah, that
makes total sense. So this is this is sort of like those early days
where like Cable knew they wanted wrestling, but they didn't. I don't think
necessarily realize how pitched the battle was between Vince and Crockett, and how far
Vince was willing to go to Like there's no battle. I'm not fighting him.
It we're competing. I don't, you know, I don't. I
don't want to good to put the Royal Rumble on another Sunday night. I
mean we had it was the night you know the show was booked. Timing.
I mean, I don't see anybody else change in plans. Well,
he already knew that was going to be that night. And Bruce Pritchet,
you are you are you are presuming things. You are presuming that I am
an individual that follows what is what what Jim Crockett was doing. I don't
know. I don't know a Pritchard unless you're talking about the doctor of desire,
Tom Pritchard, which I most certainly am not and probably never would.
So then I don't I don't know any of the Pritchard Do you know any
other doctors of desire? Myself, I'm very desirable and I have a doctorate
in that. How did you manage to get triple H off the board?
That was a really slick one board? Well, I mean, listen,
the the the thing about you know, the the political nature of a board
of directors is is the thing? And and did I get triple H off
the board? You know? I mean it is sure, it's easy to
say that, you know, But at the same time, you know I'm
not the only member of the board, right yea, uh so yes,
let's not forget that while this abomination is happening in New York, uh Jim
Crockett Promotions is pretending that they can do a show at the Orange County Convention
Center in Orlando in that same night that anybody will come to headlined by Ron
Garvin ver Stick Moreno going to cage there, Brad Armstrong and Ricky Santana versus
Eddie Gilbert and the terminator in the car. And you better believe Bugsy McGraw
is nowhere near Dusty at this point. We've talked about how Bugsy straight up
slap Dusty at one point. Oh my god, Bugsy McGraw. Now this
all sounds very chaotic, and I thought it was a great point made by
one of the one of the most unbelievable members of the Solar System, Matt,
who always provides such great backup to us as we prepare episodes. And
he was just a hungry Philadelphia based Crockett fan at the time. He was
so into how how NWA contrasted with WWF, and he says, actually,
the chaos that you know everyone seems to recount when they revisit the Crockett of
this era was actually part of its appeal. And I thought this was a
perspective worth wow. Looking right in here, Matt writes one more thing I
want to say, Well, this is top of mind that that JCP chaos,
the inconsistent branding, the unpredictable appearances, jobbers who are never named,
broadcast locations that are never identified, references to past and future events that I'd
never heard of and would never see that MESSI maybe it didn't happen. Maybe
it didn't happen either, right, yeah, little did you know? Like
that's the thing they're referencing the bunk House Stampede to sell this pay per view.
The bunk House Stampede was never on television. They showed clips of matches
sometimes, but also according to Wikipedia, there's one more. They called this
the third annual, but there was a fourth one after this, before this,
before this was the last one. Yeah, I mean yeah, let
me let me yeah, yeah, please take a look. It's hard because
you know what they would do is they would do a serious of bunk House
Battle royals, and then the winners of all of them would face off in
a big finale, and the big finale would be the one for the half
a million dollars and this big fucking boot, this trophy boot that would be
filled with all the cash, this big cowboy boot. So, according to
Wikipedia, there were four Bunk House Stampede matches eighty five eighty six, eighty
seven, eighty eight, Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they call this
third annual the third annual. Yeah, that's that's not right. That doesn't
job with my understanding. The fourth annual. I wonder if that first that
first year may not have been called a stampede, because I feel like the
stampede piece of it is supposed to a bunk House Battle Royal. The idea
of the stampede was it was all the winners of the bunk House Battle Royals
on the circuit, We're coming together. I'm not sure in eighty five they
did it that way. It may have just been a one off recording.
Again, I mean not that I'm saying this is the most accurate thing in
the world, but it's probably. Again. According to uh Wikipedia, the
concept says in nineteen eighty five, the nwas Jimcarcker Product Promotions come up with
a new match to increase the fans interest in their product, the bunk House
Stampede. Yeah, all right, Stampede's right there. Yeah, so yeah.
The inconsistent branding, unpredictable appearances, jobbers who never named broadcast locations,
never identified references to past events, You'll never see Matt writes, all of
that was part of its charm and a lure back in eighty eight when I
was a kid watching in Philly. It's only a detriment now as an adult
watching it as a television productive. Wait, I see why, I see
why it's different. I'm reading now. Sorry, But because in eighty seven
there was no stampede match. It was eighty seven that didn't have the stampede
match. Yes it was. It was the right They didn't have the match.
It was whoever won the most battle Royals would would was the winner,
right without a finale, And that meant that I think the and well,
I mean kind kind of because so at the end of the these fucking idiotic
things, Dusty and Big Bubba Rogers, we're tied for most wins. And
then they had a two man steel cage bunk house match. Right, it
was a one on one match almost where you had to throw your opponent over
the top of the cage. Oh god, okay, so there was some
precedent for the cage element of it, but that was just a one on
the daddy. We did it with a two man prevent baby, we can
do it with eight men. If you know what I'm talking about Daddy.
We're fan. Will build the cage, baby, We build the cage high
and toe all the way to heaven itself, and we'd take people up they
off. We'd take our opponents and we'll toss them over the cage of the
floor. Opponents, they should have been bunk beds in there. Make it
look like a real cowboy bunkhouse. You should have been a bunk bed stampede.
I brought this up last time, and we were talking about bunk house
stampede. I think during the art of war games. What's the movie where
all the cowboys stay in a room for like ninety percent of it and shoot
each other over time? Oh God, here we go. Is it a
Coen Brothers movie or a or a Tarantino movie? Oh oh oh Hateful eight?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, they're all on that
fucking thing. Yeah. Sure. As the historical precedent that this is like
it, we'll get into kind of like a cowboys mythology thing, the idea
of the punk house. I mean it, it existed. It's not like
a it's not like a fabrication. But this is sort of like a dramatization
of it. So there you go all right, I knew it was some
element of that. I thought it was the first year that wasn't the same,
But of course, this being nonsensical, would be the third year.
Yeah, the third year they changed things up, just like the It's the
equivalent of adding forty men into the Royal Rumble. Well, it's wild that
you mentioned Bubba Rogers because we mentioned last week in the Rumble coverage that well,
you know, Bossman is not in the Rumble right around the time of
the Rumble as when word starts to hit the sheets that he's coming in,
And that was a big blow because Dusty was really building up Bubba to be
a top heel. It really his top foil, like the next in line
after you know, the Niki to feud and then the Tully Blanchard feud.
Of course, you know that was a that was a big role to have,
the heel that would give Dusty a run for his money on the circuit,
and Bubba was primed and that one really was said to bruise Dusty when
when they signed away boss Man, who was very unhappy with his Star Kade
eighty seven payoff and wasn't shy about letting people know about it. So,
I mean I didn't. I didn't know about that, that he was being
groomed for anything. I just didn't. And I said, well, you
know, I mean, if you need there's a talented side of a bitch.
He's like a big guy, he can move, he's fast. I
didn't. I didn't. I didn't mean Dusty any harm. I just was.
I mean, if he had told me he had plans, I would
have never signed boss Man. Is that right? And I mean that to
be a trick question. Uh so, yeah, back when I was a
gid watching in Philly, it's only a detriment. Now was an adult,
he says, watching as a television production. I was ten years old when
this pay per view happened, and jcpn WA was not a TV show.
I think I mentioned this in an email years ago. But my impression was
that these wrestlers were constantly fighting each other, and every week they turned cameras
on so we could all watch some of it up north. Wow, that's
what it out like. It felt dangerous, like horror movies that I wasn't
allowed to watch or something. I wouldn't have had that feeling if it was
polished. And it's a feeling I really enjoy revisiting only eighties JCP in early
nineties WCW gives it to me. Maybe that's part of my own loose association
with JCP slash WCW in the autumn Horror, Blood Chaos, screaming, Yes,
let's fucking go. And this is also a great place to put some
of the wonderful feedback we got to the Rumble Lady eight episode, filling in
a few holes that we had in terms of, you know, how the
show was put together and presented at the time, for sure, and in
the spirit of kind of keeping with what we're trying to achieve here and painting
the picture of this this very important night in the business. January twenty fourth,
nineteen eighty eight, across two podcasts, I thought we'd we'd take some
time to pass on some some words, this one from from Stephen Boss.
I wish you could share it. What's wonderful here is that Stephen was sitting
in the position of somebody living in Canada as it to be a fan at
the time, watching television on Canada, watching WWF Canadian television, and it's
fascinating to hear him describe how the rumble was presented to him as someone who
theoretically could have bought a ticket to this show, and therefore was much more
I pressed upon by the hype co chairs. I heard you discussing the eighty
eight Rumble and in its promotion locally in Hamilton, and so I thought I
would toss you a little context, as I was lucky enough to see the
whole thing as a seven year old hulkamaniac. The show was in fact promoted
as a big deal, not just another house show. Cops Colosseum was a
brand newish eighteen thousand seed venue, a state of the art rink in those
days. It was because it was booked because Vince always loved christening new buildings.
It would look good as a full house on TV, and he'd benefit
from the tax breaks in the American dollar exchange while producing TV. It wasn't
just another show on the loop. Cops was specifically booked on short notice for
this TV special. In those days, the localized promos for ron Into area
events were shot at the Airport Howard Johnson, where everybody stayed on or backstage
at Maple Leaf Gardens. This was still the era of the blue backdrop with
white WWE logos for promos. Our promos were handled by local TV legend Billy
Red Lions. Billy promoted this card over and over again on local TV for
a month leading up to the show. He first announced it as a special
added event separate from the usual monthly MLG House show, which was still going
on as usual. He'd encourage you to buy tickets to both events and stress
the need to buy tickets to the added Hamilton's show as well as the regular
Toronto show using two points one. This Royal Rumble was a special event that
would be broadcast on TV only in the United States. USA was then remains
now unavailable on Canadian cable. Well, then wouldn't be USA, would it?
No? It wouldn't right, No, I call USA if it's in
Canada anyway, So the only way you could see this unique show was to
be there live in person. Billy's catchphrase don't shut damn miss it carried extra
weight here He's stressed filling the arena so as to well represent the local wrestling
scene too. The names of the Royal Rebel entrance would be drawn from a
hat. The first time Billy mentioned this in What Jack Tubby fully suited and
wearing a black fedora. At that point, I considered briefly that this might
be a troll email. But ah, I'm just about to head out that
Jack Tunny or is you know what? Are they fucking Philip Marlow? Jesus
Marlow? Yes? Is that it is that the detective? I think so?
I was going to say, is that Jack Tunny? Or is that
Jack Abramoff? This likely suggests a Maple Leaf Gardens taping in December of eighty
seven, Tony took off his hat and explained that every every few minutes at
the time, every few minutes and under termined amount of time a new participant
will be able to enter the match. It could be thirty seconds, it
could be ten hours, but you can't win until everyone's come out. Uh,
Jack, it can't be ten hours. I'll quibble with that. Why,
brother, I'm what I'm cut? Sorry, Jack, we shouldn't have
Can you not throw curveballs like that? Please? What? We're trying to
get a shoot done here? Jacket's fine? Hold on all right? Hold
on to what? What? Am I holding on too? Too? Please?
Continue? I remember then he would pull a wrestler's name out of his
hat. He then demonstrated he fucked around with some slips of paper in the
hat, pulled out one and Red and Reddit Don Racco. He said,
I wish the stuff was on tape. I don't know. He and Billy
then explained the rumble and how it worked to viewers at home. So what
you're saying, oh, no, no, this is him. So what
you're saying, mister President, is that Dom Morocco was chosen first, he'd
be at a great disadvantage type shit. These were two minute spots. As
the weeks went by, different participants would walk in front of the interview backdrop
and talk to Billy while he continued to hold Jack Dunny's hat. The hat
and the idea of pulling names out of it became a key part of the
promotion, so much so that when I first saw the eighty at Royal Rumble
via bootleg tape trade, I was disappointed to not see Jack Tunny and his
mother fucking hat. It was very odd to see this show promoted so heavily,
have the rules being explained so regularly, and then have it just seemingly
disappear forever. I didn't beg my parents to take me to the show,
because they also mentioned that Hulk and Andre would be would be having it,
would have a contract signing, and so my kid Bring computed that as Hulks
not wrestling to the show must be bullshit filler. Also, it bears mentioning
that everybody, and I mean everybody called it the Rumble Royal or Rumble Royal.
Thanks for the hard work you Fedora tipping badass legends and don't you dare
miss it a wonderfully male man. That's stuff that's totally lost yep, because,
like he pointed out, if you watched ww television in the United States,
you would have seen none of this. That's so amazing at these unique
shoots they would do for the Canadian market and of course a market that they
had taken over by getting into business with the Tunnies after they were working with
Crockett. It was those early Crockett eighty four, eighty three, eighty two.
You know, you would see all kinds of shows from Maple Leaf Gardens
that Crockett would staff not vince so so truly tremendous stuff. And man would
love to see the footage of Jack Tunney with a Fedora. Said a lot
of first Royal Rumble Please, that's like necessary, highly necessary, and great
color there that Steve brings because the impression I got listening to Pritcher talk about
it in reading was that this show was sort of it was on the it
was on the schedule for a generic Hamilton's House show. But when you put
together the missing piece, which I did not know, that Cops Coliseum was
brand spanking new, and that you know, Steve's conviction that this show was
specifically added to the calendar because they had the Royal Rumble concept in mind and
it wasn't just another thing they already had on the calendar that, like Pritcher
talked about, that was proximate to television equipment that they knew they could use
to do this thing, and the tax advantages. So there's a lot of
wrinkles there. But I guess that's the historical question, is what was there
going to be a show in Hamilton's without the Rumble or was it specifically selected
from it? So the world may never know. I'm not sure they're even
accustomed to doing Sunday night house shows back then on the regular, they probably
worked, and they were running three fucking times a night, so often back
then, and also from the Great White North. Corey from Winnipeg, who
is such a wonderful resource for us during our life and death of a wa
Winnipeg being of course in a Watown who is able to live it and is
of a vintage that he can reflect on what it's like to experience it as
a fan, which is a disadvantage to us, who you know, we
were two years old when a lot of the stuff is taking shape, or
four or six. Has this to say about the eighty seven rumble piece we
talked about, you know, the Saint Louis show that when trial ran the
Rumble that wasn't on television running. Corey writes, your Coachairman, it may
be late in the summer, but the release of the nineteen eight eight Royal
Rumble is like the rebirth of spring. Apologies if you did mention this and
I missed it, but I think you may not have come across the following
nugget. In an article I read last year about this event, the writer
noted a major gaff that was made in Saint Louis at that eighty seven Rumble.
Before intermission, the ring announcer detailed the tickets for next month's card would
be on sale that day. They announced a few matches to entice the crowd,
including a main event of Hogan defending against the One Man Gang. Prior
to the Rumble starting, they read off the rules and declared that tonight's winner
of the Royal Rumble would receive a title match next month. Wow. Since
they had already announced a Gang as the challenger for that show, people realized
who was going to win the Rumble. That probably hurt it's enthusiasm. Yeah,
it's a factor and why it was considered a dud. Sure enough,
that is how it played out. A contingent of the crowd booed throughout the
Rumble as they already knew the outcome Rumble Royal. I definitely remember hearing it
called this another Canadian saying this, boss, here you go. In fact,
I'm pretty sure the VHS jacket was printed that way for the eighty eight
event. I don't believe that's the case. I don't know if it did,
it was I saw it. The nineteen eighty eight Royal Rumble remained the
most elusive card for me. We never had USA Network, so while I
saw some info and syndicated TV about it. We had no access for some
reason. Rental never came to any stores. I called dozens of rental places
to no avail. I actually didn't see this royal this rumble until nineteen ninety
three when a store finally had it. So yeah, they didn't have Wow,
I've never seen the VHS for this, I'm either of I. I
mean, I certainly certainly was not around my neck of the woods. But
you know, this is a similar thing for Crockett fans in terms of the
bunk house Stampede. They've just seen snippets on television unless it came to your
town and you bought tickets. You know, you're you're hearing about this thing
being referenced, but it was never something that you could have watched while you
while you wanted to. So that those are some helpful I think pieces of
context on the rumble side of things. So what is a bunk house?
That is a question definition. I think it's this wikipedia a barracks like building
that historically was used to house working cowboys on ranches. So that fits yea.
These cowboys are definitely working or loggers in a logging camp in North America,
as most cowboys were young single men. The standard bunkhouse was a large,
open room with narrow beds or cots for each individual in little privacy.
The bunk house of the late nineteenth century was usually heated by a woodstove,
and personal needs were tended two in a cook house and an outhouse. So
this is like, you know, men were men, blah blah blah.
That's right. And while the Bunkhouse Stampede was not a television presentation or special
or even like a closed circuit starcaded ESK event as we mentioned, it definitely
was something that Dusty was keen to move tickets for when it came to your
neck of the woods. So he did back before he was completely fried.
From a creative standpoint, when they launched the thing in nineteen eighty five,
put some real creative energy into telling the story of what this bunk House Stampede
was to be, what sort of mythology it was supposed to tap, what
it was supposed to represent, and to explain this to the viewers of NWA
television at the time. Of course, this is eighty five, the year
that Crockett took TBS back from Vince, bought it from Vince. We should
say after it's got it in the Black Saturday heist and then eventually found that
he wasn't going to be able to work it out with Ted Turner. As
we discussed in sensational detail on our Black Saturday coverage, It's back in the
hands of the n WA. Dusty's motivated, he's telling stories. I'm not
sure this actually ever aired. I'm pretty sure it did not on TBS,
but it did air on the the n w A syndicated JCP syndicated networks,
which included for years wpi X Channel eleven in New York. That's an important
thing to mention in terms of, like, you know, it's not just
TBS that New York wrestling fans would have had to watch to see Jim Crockett
promotions in Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling. They had a coverage on a very prominent
New York station as well. So here is former junior heavyweight star in the
Territory Nelson Royal, donning a cowboy hat and explaining in a vignette they are
done Crockett TV. Around Thanksgiving of nineteen eighty five, just what this bunk
house Stampede is supposed to be all about? Ladies and gentlemen back in the
Old West, when they had an argument, they went outside and fought.
When they lived in that bunk house, all those people together, you always
had argument. We have a man that's been in a bunk house fight before.
Let's listen to him. Nelson Royal, the world's junior heavyweight champion,
former junior heavyweight champion. Out a brother, come in and have a cup
of coffees. I'm glad you could make it because I've been asked to explain
a few things about a bunk house stampede match, and I considered myself an
authority honor. But I was in the first one it was ever held in
Texas, and I came out of it with a broken arm. And where
they derived from, in the western part of the country, where you hadn't
ten fifteen twenty men living in a bunk house something like this behind us here,
and when you put men that close together and you've got to have problems.
There's a lot of bad blood between some people. One there was no
other way to settle it. To get one thing, you went outside,
and you want the way you work. You might have your boots on,
you might have your jeans, have your shirt, your spurs, whatever,
and that's how you went out. And the winner of something like that was
the man that was left standing. And now they've come along and said a
few years ago and they had the funk house Spam teen the only funk seenor
had it in Texas, and it's one of the wildest things you'll ever seen
in your life. The second worst thing that you can be in the most
dangless nat is a battle royal where you've got twenty men in the ring and
the only way that you can be eliminated is to be thrown over the top
rope. Or you take these two and you combine them, put them together,
and you've got something that's really a deadly match because money and greed and
bad blood make things a luck typer than what they really are. Because you've
got men that come in this ring and like I said, they can bring
anything they want to bring. The are virtually no rooms, there's nothing to
stop the man from doing. And you can bring the cowbell, you can
bring a good branding iron and whatever you want. Because when you get into
this type of match, you have no friends, because there's nuch there's no
such thing as a friend. When you're in match, you have to watch
your back, to your front, everything about you. You're in danger of
being hurt and get broken legs because the people flying around in the ring.
Like I said, when there's money here in danger, there's a lot of
things can happen. And the only way that you can be a winner in
this you've got to be the last man standing in the middle of the ring.
And when I say the last man standing, mister, that's that is
a problem within itself. And believe you, when you can only be eliminated
from this match is to throw you over the corp road. And then when
you're the last man standing in the middle of the ring, and brother,
you can call yourself the full of the woods, and then you are the
matter. What do you think? Uh? I mean, I'm I'm curious
about all the men being in that place is gonna cause what do you say,
cause trouble? Yeah, you're that many men. When you have that
many men in a in a in a bunk house, that means you're gonna
have trouble. Okay, I mean, and why were you Why is anyone
going into a bunk house? I guess there's no other place for the little
cowboys to stay and get chilled, right, you know, this is the
wild West. There, there's no accommodations. You're going out there seeking fortune.
You're and you're you know, you're you're going into a lawless area where
there aren't police. And yeah all that. Yeah, is that the one
that aired on on on Starcade? Oh? Did they're in Starkade? I
don't remember. There was one. There was one that we saw that was
on that was on a starcade and it was the Yeah, I mean I
remember it being long, kind of like that. I don't know if that
was is he buy a fire? Yeah he is? Yeah, that's the
one they put on Starkad. I forgot that they put on Star KaDee.
I think it was eighty six. Oh maybe they replayed it. That's from
eighty five what I just played. Oh okay, maybe that's maybe that's when
they had I don't know. I just remember it like it just like like
Star kade just fucking it stopped. Yeah, and then and then all of
a sudden we get this right, you know, you know stampede, pull
up a chair, up a chair. I wanna tell you a story about
bunk house. I'd rather not I can tell me a story about Marty funk
Houser instead, can you tell me a story about cheese or something. That's
what the that's what it should have been in New York is funk Houser.
Yeah, but he's got the fire crackling and they get the song going.
Oh my god. He made reference to it being a Douty funk Senior thing,
which is entirely possible. I didn't see any reference, you know,
and clippings from the sixties or whatever, and you know that territory is pretty
well covered by the papers to a bunkhouse stampede. Perhaps they called it something
else, but that's of course. You know, Dusty broke in under the
Funks and Dory's Senior in Austin and Mr Alone stuff, So if they did
do it, he remembered it. It's also the inspiration, from what I
understand to the Western States Heritage title that Larry Zibisco wins on the show.
Yeah, that was a title that existed apparently in that old territory, and
a lot of what you know Dusty tried to bring was stuff that he learned
there or picked up their concepts. So their thanks to Nelson Royal as kind
of the I don't know the spirit of the match, but it's so it's
so wild because you see that described in such you know, flowery and literary
and almost poetic terms there by Nelson Royal. Then you watch the match,
it's just a bunch of guys walking around elbow and punching, blading themselves.
Like yeah, it's it's the same fucking shit. It doesn't feel particularly chaotic
to me. I mean, it doesn't feel particularly dangerous. No. I
think the other ones might have been the house show ones where they brought weapons
and didn't have a cage wall. But I don't know. I hear that
description and then I think about the match I saw here at Bunkhouse Stamped nineteen
eighty eight on pay per view, no less, and this is not I
don't know, this is not it. This is not the spirit of what
he was talking about. It just looks like a I don't know, it
just lets a bunch of guys standing around punching each other, right, I
mean, it's a battle royal in a cage. It's a battle royal in
a cage much more than it's a bunk house anything. Right, So it's
kind of a shame that the spirit of it is kind of lost. But
again, the first one happens in nineteen eighty five, and again you have
to draw the distinction between bunk house Stampede finales and bunk house matches. They
started doing bunk house matches as far as I can tell, starting in the
beginning of nineteen eighty five. You start to see six man tags being referred
to as bunk house matches. For example, Columbia, South Carolina, January
third, eighty five, that's Dusty Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat and Dick Slater over
Tully Blanchard, Ron Bass and Black Bart in a bunk house match December of
eighty five in Cleveland is referred to, however, as kind of the first
bunk house victory that's stampede and is talked about on television as as a bunk
house Stampede victory. And it's one this particular one which I believe is it's
referred to on television, is the very first bunk house Stampede is December seventh,
nineteen eighty five in Cleveland, Ohio, and it's won by magnum Ta.
He wins a twenty man bunk house Stampede match. That's not the same
as winning the whole thing, whole bunk House Stampede series, if you will,
or whatever. It's almost like the Bound for Glory series. You know,
there's a bunch of matches life not to the final one happens. Do
you actually have an idea who won the thing? Guess what? It sucks
either way, I think, I think I have to agree with you,
but especially love that magnum won this match because later on Come eighty eight,
when Dusty puts himself over in the match, his thing is, it's my
match, Like it's stupid for anybody else to win the Bunkhouse Stampede or for
anybody to see the bunk House team as as a springboard to make a new
star. That that's not what the match is there for. It's not there.
But in fact, it's exactly how they used it in the beginning to
get magnum Ta over the top. Who was you know, of course,
Dusty Rhodes's personal protege. And this is of course before the the fateful accident
the paralyzed magnum Ta and cut his his career short. So let's hear how
this first bunk House Stampede was talked about and hyped on Crockett Television. First,
here this bit of sound O, my good dad, there were good
Okay, David, what do you talk about now? Anything goes Kaine Bratt
knuckles, belt, belt buckles, boot boulders. I'm a good Tonic.
You got to pay these guys, Dancy. Now remember it belt, I
remember this is every man for himself. That is right, the way you
are eliminated and then you're out. So that was the December seven, twenty
five match. They played a clip of it on Crockett Television that Magnuntier one.
But you hear their boss. They're describing brass knuckles and they're describing actual
chaos. I mean, I guess that would have been more interesting. I
don't know. I just I don't know. I don't know how I feel
about this whole fucking thing. Yep. Yeah, it's it's questionable, to
say the least. But so there is footage of that first one, but
again it wasn't a standalone television presentation. They went back to the Omni on
December eighth. The next night in Atlanta and Magnuntier wins a twenty man twenty
grand bunk House Stampede according to history ofww dot com. Then they go to
December nine, Greenwood, South Carolina. There's another bunk House Battle Royal with
a range of participants for twenty thousand dollars prize. And while it doesn't appear
clear from the results that survive who actually won the thing, we do have
the list of participants, including of course Dusty Rhodes. And then come December
fifteenth, nineteen eighty five, and Greensboro, Dusty wins a twenty man bunk
House Stampede match, which I suppose is the final because I didn't see anything
else in eighty five that would constitute the records showing that Dusty one quote unquote
the nineteen eighty five bunk House Stampede, So that was pretty much the finale
that we're talking about with the twenty thousand dollars prize. December twenty eighth as
well, I should take that back Ccember twenty eighth and Philly, Act of
All Places, Philadelphia at the Civic Center. Dusty Rhodes also wins a bunk
House Stampede after he and magnum Ta beat Flair and Tully in a tag match
earlier in the show, So maybe that was the one that captain I think
I think they ended it in Greensboro though. December fifteen, Dusty winning the
bunk House Stampede. So let's get a look at some of the print ads
for these original bunk House stampedes. We had a lot of fun, of
course, Boss with the print ads. Love for Royal, rumble, I
love it. Gimme, give me, gimme, gimme design just to get
people in the building. Boy. This is one for the Greenwood Civic Center.
The Index Journal presenting this this ad here, tell the people what you
see worldwide mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling. How can you be worldwide and mid atlantic
because you were mid Atlantic and then you got the TBS contract, h the
WMA, CW, the the the Walmaco Wrestling, Greenwood Civic Center, Monday,
December nine, seven thirty pm. Greenwood bunk House Stampede. Is there
anything different about a Greenwood bunk House Stampede? I ask uh Nope. Twenty
man bunk House, over the Top, over Top Battle Royal, twenty thousand
dollars to winner, come rest as you want, anything goes now. Wait
a minute, can't you really talking about can't you come to any match dressed
as you want, right, and I mean I get, But I guess
not only anything goes isn't always the case. Dusty Rhodes, Rage and Bull,
Billy Jack, Don Car Noodle, Pistol, Pez Whatley, Rock and
Roll Express, Jim Jeffers, Mac Jeffers, Ivan Colof, Nikita Koloff,
Colden, Terror, Magnum Ta Crush Your Crush, Chef Only Anderson, Arn
Anderson, Tolly, Blanchard, Abdullah the Butcher, Barbarian, Tony Zane NWA.
Subject to change. It doesn't just say at the bottom of this lineup
subject to change. It says for some reason. Car. It doesn't say
card subject to change. It says to the end of you is subject to
change. Well, hey, they knew it before everybody else apparently. Plus
TV taping of the Live min Atlantic and Worldwide wrestling programs. Join us for
this great one time event. Pick up your tickets at the Civic Center box
officer call a number. Ticket prices are ten dollars, eight dollars and three
fucking dollars Greenwood Civic Center Box Office. Hello, I'd like to purchase tickets
to the Bunkhouse printed. Can I please purchase three dollars tickets great South Carolina
accent. It's Greenwood South Kakilaki for those wondering. That's from the December six,
nineteen eighty five Index Journal. And we have another one boss to set
the stage to let us feel what it would feel like, this one from
the Richmond Times Dispatch in Richmond, Virginia. Always at Crockett Stronghold in the
home turf of one magnum Ta Oh Boy mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Richmond Colosseum
Tonight Ringside and Reserve. Fifteen dollars general admission, twelve dollars Children under the
age of twelve, five dollars. Bunk House Stampede, twenty man bunk House
Battle Royals bunk House, over and over, like anyone knows what the fucking
bunk house is. Twenty thousand dollars to the winner, Rick Flair, Olie
and Arn Anderson, magnum Ta, Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Nikita Coloft,
Billy Jack, Rock and Roll Express, Ivan Coloff, Crusher, kruchef
Abdul the Butcher, the Barbarian, Don car Noodle, Pistol, Pez Whatley,
the Raging Bull, Tommy Lane, Golden Terror Denny Brown plus Double Texas
Bull Rope Match, Rick Flair and arn Anderson versus Magnum Tya and sty Rhodes,
Tully Blanchard versus belly Jack for World six man title, Ivan Cold Off,
the Kita Cold Off and Crusher kru Chef versus Rock and Roll Expressed and
the Raging Bull After the Butcher versus Pistol, Pez Whatley, Tom Lane,
Tommy Lane versus Don car Noodle plus other matches. Tremendous, tremendous. Where
do I buy tickets? They talk so much into this little corner of the
newspaper. I mean, like also, like I love how all the all
the guys who are in the Battle Royal have these other matches. Oh yeah,
yeah, they're working twice. You got the little carved out heads where
they just like, yep, photoshop the heads. They got one from Tully
where it apparently is from the top of the page because the top of his
head's cut off. Look at Olie's face, Oh, floating dusty head.
You got Arn't floating head for some reason, wearing a New York Angeles cap
all. He looks like all he looks like he just got bit in the
ass by some kind of animal. Absolutely he does. You're absolutely right about
that. So just tremendous man that you just open up your paper and oh
wow, look at this stampede. You guys want to go to the bunkhouse.
Mom, I cluds You're never doing that again. Fuck. So this
is Magnum's big moment, and let's get a taste of how he was talking
about it on Crockett Television at the time winning. I hesitated to say the
first bunkhouse stamped because I would create the wrong impression. But the first kind
of time on television, they were saying, this is at bunk house event,
and Magnum is going to get the win. All right, everyone here
at World Championship Wrestling very please and excited to welcome back this man with the
US heavyweight title now in his possession. Magnum tak you very much less the
most brutal match in my entire life to Tolly Blanchard to get back this ansti
sevyweight tunnel. Yeah, that's all history now. Now I got to look
towards the future. I tell you, Bracker, you talk about wrestling matches,
you want more wrestling matches. Well, this title is gonna be up
for anybody out there that wants a shot at it. You Buddy Landell,
aren't Anderson, Ollie Anderson. Anybody that thinks they can unseat me from the
un say Saity weight champing ship, come right on up, take your shot,
because there's contracts out there for anybody that wants a piece of it.
This belt wasn't made by putting up on a shelf and just keep it all
nice and clean. It was made to be defended, and that's exactly what
I intend to do. Man. Let's talk about now, you as many
wrestlers around the world a chance to win twenty thousand dollars and the bunk House
Stampede that's underway certainly a Grueli match, that's right. You know, a
bunk house Stampede will probably be the most exciting match that I've ever taken place
on myself, because not only do you have a better role situation, twenty
men in the ring at one time, they can wear whatever they want,
bring any type of apparatus they want it right here, you see, Man
got a weightlifting belt and it's just gonna be mad cap chaos situation going on
in there. And you've got twenty thousand dollars at stake each and every time
we go in there. This is gonna be the most exciting series and professional
wrestling that I've ever been involved in, and it's going to draw the toughest
competition in the country today because everybody wants to be a part of this thing
now, Bunk House Stampede, and it's coming very soon. And once again,
congratulations Magnum. Everybody glad to see you the day. All right,
Magnum, let's go back to the rim. That's right. And also,
as we have talked about earlier, though, Bunk House Stampede is well underway.
And congratulations to Magnum ta right, he won the very first Bunk House
Stampede in Cleveland the other night. He has twenty thousand dollars Richard. So
there you go. And this is like, you know, it'und like they
would have a lot of focus. They would have like at the top of
the show, Chavanni and Crockett would mention like four things about what's coming up
in the NWA, and that would be one of them. It would come
to be like a throwaway thing almost for the national show. Yeah, they
didn't really try to harp too much on something that you can only see in
one city or you know, a handful of cities if you bought tickets,
but it was referenced. So it's really tricky. There's it's not like you
know, watch the raw after the pay per view to see how they follow
it up on it. It's like, you know, you hear magnum kind
of tucking and mention of it into of course discussing his classic match at Starcade
nineteen eighty five. Yeah, I quit match with Tully Blanchard. He was
just coming off that big victory that was that certainly catapulted him into you know,
a spot where you could easily see him becoming the new champion and NWA's
counterpoint to Hulk Hogan. Frankly, I was talked about a lot in the
recent Dark Side of the Ring special on Magnum Ta's life story, and uh
yeah, and and and then you know, he doesn't even do a promo
celebrating winning the bunk House Stampede's just mentioned in passing and with Tony Schavanni offering
congratulate don't matter. That's why. What's that it doesn't fucking matter? That's
why. That's one way to look at it. As far as being in
the ring, being in those early sort of mysterious bunkhouse stampedes, magnum Ta
spoke to Kfave Commentaries about what it was like mixing it up in the ring
on these things talk about the bunk house stampede, Dusty's famous creation. Do
you like them? J yeah, I like him because I like putting on
the boots of the jeans in the ripped up shirts, sent the bandannas and
just stomping mudholes and people and it was fun. Though. I will have
to say there's a classic picture going around the Internet of of from talking about
bunkhouses of Dusty. Dusty and I Jerry Lawl are all coming back from a
match. Dusty's all covered in blood. I'm all covered in blood, and
Jerry looks like he's been at the popcorn stand. And I was like,
you know, and this after, you know, twenty five minute match,
I think about stuffing. Oh, that's pretty funny. But to that point,
they were fun because they were outrageous and you knew when you went in
there, you know, guy's gonna take his cowboy boot off and try to
beat you of the head with it. And somebody's gonna have, you know,
pull out a piece of barbed wire and we're gonna have this, We're
gonna have that. And it was a fun just kind of Steve blow off
kind of fun kind of deal. But you know, something you do once
a year and drive on and not once a year. But I get your
point, now, yeah, one season a year. Yeah, so yeah,
Joe Lawler was definitely at the popcorn stand. Yes, for reasons that
don't need to be experienced. Girls were read, I'll expound upon them,
and yeah, so I guess it's fun that you could dress in jeans and
people that take off their cowboy boots. I'm still waiting to understand what's interesting
about this match. I'm still waiting for them. I'm still I'm still still
waiting to hear about what is actually fun about it. I don't care these
guys are wearing jeans instead. It isn't I mean dick to me right?
And I get barbed wire. I guess that's kind of a novelty. But
I guess I remember those first time ever saw bob wire, there was pictures
of the Dusty Tully matches with barbed wire in the This is Wrestling Coffee table
Book I had. I just love a copy up by the way. Wow.
Indeed, so this being Nasaucolosium, as I mentioned, this was not
the first time JCP ran Nasaucolosyum. That would have been November twenty fifth,
nineteen eighty seven, Thanksgiving weekend. To be a wrestling fan in New York
in the eighties, you know what I mean? Yep, get this.
You get Pro Wresting USA trying to come through. You get like that steamboat
Flare match in eighty four at the meadow Lands. You get a WA trying
to run the meadow Lands as well in eighty five when they get Slaughter.
You get Crockett trying to make inroads here and doing a handful of events in
and around the area. And of course you get WWF rocking and rolling like
never before, Hull Comania running wild, and every Madison Square Garden show.
It's just Thanksgiving weekend. I mean, how about we go see Crockett at
the Nassau Hall Seum and then watch fucking Survivor series. Yeah. Fine.
They probably threw this date on when they realized that Vents was calling the cable
company's bluff on carrying Starcade Versus Survivor series, because it seemed like they went
into New York when they had a fucking mentality, not when they had like
a strategy behind it. Of course. Yeah, like that's what it definitely
feels like like. There didn't seem to feel like a like there was a
real like, oh, let's let's see what we can do here. It
was more like, oh, this guy fuckingsfull, I want to do this.
How about that motherfucker? And that's what sunk Verne. Verne tried to
do the same thing and he ended up dead. And Fritz tried to do
the same thing as we talked about in the World Class Journey where and he's
dead too, and he's very dead. They moved into Dallas and then they
start pushing into Boston and they start we'll do von Ers across America. And
it's like, guys, like you're just going to spend yourself out of business,
pretending that people outside your area actually give a shit to the price sustainably
give a shit, you know, to the point where you can turn a
profit. But yeah, So that show on Long Island in November twenty fifth,
nineteen eighty seven, saw Ron Garvin Dusty Rhodes and Barry Wyndham, as
well as Ricky and Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson in the Rock and Roll Express
and a five on five beating Big Bubba Aren and Tully, Bobby Eaton and
Stan Lane. It was actually a war games, Thank you very much.
Wow. We did talk now that I think about this, we did talk
about this as one of those stealth how show only war games that they would
do. They did one in Chicago as well, featuring the Road Warriors prominent
I think in August of nineteen eighty seven, after holding the first one earlier
in eighty seven and then doing the one in July. They did both of
the first ones in July, right, it was Atlanta and then it was
Orlando, and they did a handful around the circuit that you know, no
video footage exists off, but they that's how you come in in New York.
You bring the fucking war games. That's how you do it. And
also on that show they had Road Warriors versus Flair and Lex Luger and a
tag team match. Luger had yet to fully consummate his breaking off from the
Horseman. That was a late eighty seventh thing, and that was a huge
thing because part of what frustrated people so much about Bunk House Stampede eighty eight
that we're talking about here this week was the idea that it made a whole
lot of sense for Lex Luger to win the thing. For whatever reasons,
Dusty put magnum Ta over in the first bunk House Stampedes, he should have
put Lex Luger over in these because clearly the guy to make a run at
Flair and come Star's always been in that weird position where he should have,
but he just never gets that extra mph, right yep, totally That's the
story of his career in so many ways. Even you know Green Recamaction ninety
when Sting wins, the push from the office at WCW was for a Luger
to actually get it, but Flair famously insisted that Sting get it. They
were pushing for Luca after Sting stuff Is suffered the knee injury. But it's
that classic thing, you know, someone joins the horsemen, they then break
off from the horseman and go after the world title, and Luger was It
was actually a Bunk House Stampede show where Lugar did the turn because they wanted
him. They wanted the other horseman, wanted Luger to throw himself out of
the bunk house Battle Royal to protect the four Horsemen, Glory and ric Flair,
and he refused to do it. And that was the big moment where
Lex Luger finally took a stand and turned baby face. And so with the
follow on being here January eighty eight, you would think perfect Luca should go
over no, no, thank you, because it's the what's it about?
It's about the bullshit. Com me, baby, of the wards if you
want throat that, I'm a bullet wards baby, because I'm a bad motherfucker.
That's will be doing, Daddy, because the American dream doff their roath.
He's gonna be there, baby, He's gonna be in the woods,
Daddy. I sit in the woods. I'm climbing trees. Baby, I'm
sucking the sap off the fucking trees because that's what the American dream doth.
He's taking all the elements. Baby, I'm sitting him inside my body and
I'm gonna screep them out and it's gonna come a bunk house stampede. The
American dream the buckle, the boot, the prestige, the money of the
bunk House Stampede, being the baddest of the band, being the bull of
the woods. If you will, twenty five thirty men stamped into one little
bit of ring, you understand, with one thing in mind, to hunt
somebody that, to kick somebody bullet there, to twist our arm off and
put the egles up in the chain. And many mornings I got up dwelling
on the factor being the two times for another bunk House stampead, Hi,
am I gonna do it this year? When last year I had to fill
around fee my nose was still on my feet, look up in the morning
and see if my ears was still on my head. My eye balls in
the socket was were playing steady on my mind because I knew Dusty Roose has
to be the buck House Stampat champion for the third time. If you will,
for your hockey fans, it's a hat trick. You understand, it's
a hat trick. And Dusty Rose now comes out here with this in mind,
anywhere in a place that on the marquee you see the national rest of
their lives presents the bunk House stamp beat if you want to just feel a
little bit of how bad it is to be the baddest to beat the bullet
the woods, then and only then buy your ticket, walk in and sit
down and watch Dusty Rhodes become the bullet of the woods. Bad bad Betty,
come fit depth the roll. They come to me, motherfucking wood baby,
It's like a cow of the woods. Dust, what milk? M
Tenny's baby? You know what's going on? Many who who are you kidding?
Dust? The only of the woods you ever cared about is chicken of
the woods. The only, the only, the only of the woods he
cared about was getting wood from the woods so he could fucking, you know,
fucking roast marshmallows own Yeah, Nelson Royal, Right, I mean it's
great. I love listening to the guy. He's just fucking amazing. But
like he's talking, he's talking into the wind. By nineteen eighty eight,
it's like Dust, no one, no one even knows what you're talking about,
and no one cares that you're gonna win the Punk House Stampede. But
maybe they did. Maybe I just don't looking back on it, I lack
what it felt like to live through it. But man is he Is he
playing a card that's not working for him by this point in a lot of
ways. So I wonder where the hell he got You know, if the
idea of the bunk house stampede and the whole concept of the match came from,
had its DNA and what a dory funk Senior used to do, I
wonder, you know, sort of where the idea of bull of the woods
came from? Like what is that even? Ye what, I don't know.
I've never heard of that term. I don't believe it's a real term.
But go ahead tell me sure what you know. This is a piece
by a writer named Roger Branch who is Professor emeritus of sociology at Georgia Southern
University, and he wrote back in twenty eighteen this piece was put together back
in the top. Well, you know what, I think we can do
better. I think we can hand it to the boss. Oh boy,
let's remember okay, Georgia Southern yep. And let's let's tell the people.
Let's educate him if you wiel on, what is all right? Woods?
All right? Here we are here with the buller woods here and back in
the time of the open range. One of the most striking critters was the
bull of the woods. As the term suggests, this apex member of the
bovine species was locally dominant and predominant. If there were other male beasts in
the area, the bull the woods was the boss by reasons of size,
or combativeness or plain meanness. The link between such animals and the terns bully
and bullying as applied to people's obvious the bull of was was predominant, meaning
the his side most of the calves dropped by cows throughout the community. It
might spend most of his time with his home heard, but he visited elsewhere
in response to phenomenal signal or pheromenal pheromones pheromonal the pheromonal phenomenal. There's a
phenomenal pheromonal signals which apparently characquatted disks. So interesting to the idea of bull
of the woods. Yeah, in the community where I grew up, the
bull the woods and impressive polled no horns. Hereford belonged to Daddy's cousin JP.
He's heard followed him and he wandered widely. He had no name,
and I cannot print most of the things he was called. Let's now call
him Toro. Toro's widespread on popularitis him from his habit of breaking into fields
and grown corn. Breaking into fields of growing corn, the bull did not
grow corn was watering for a moment. His habit of breaking in the fields
a growing corn leading his head with him, A dozen cows and a cumping
young can destroy a lot of corn in a short time. I wonder who's
a pull of the woods. No one could destroy corn in his record time
if his method of venture was simple. The huge beasts simple walked through fence
posts, popped or staples that held fence. The posts went flying. Sometimes
the eggsited in the same way but in a different place, So that's like
you know, the fence post, the fence of the car. Yep.
Persuading Toro and I hire him to leave onecefield was a challenge. Y'all dogs
would bark, but not chase did old brave bulldogs. Humans did not take
a switch to him, did not want to go into the field with him.
The solution was a shotgun loaded with bird shot. A load of numbered
eights to the rear quarter to delivering were offensive from forty to fifty yards away,
hardly penetrated his thick hide, but stung enough to persuade him to go
elsewhere with Hiram and tow If Daddy was not at hand, Mama knew how
to use the Remanton twelve gage pump. Once Toro invaded the field of Uncle
Bill, who stepped over the broken fence and went after him with his brown
and automatic shotgun. In response to the butt shot, Toro turning his attacker
and advanced no more, mister nice guy. The next two shots went straight
to the broad white head. At the third Toro fell to his knees,
bellowed, climbed back on to his feet, and exited. Thereafter, he
invaded other fields, but not Uncle Bill's. Given to a humorous hyperbole,
my uncle declared that whenever that bull was sold to the by would pay for
ten pounds a lead well. In the end of the open range, some
farmers could get out of the cattle business, and the rest confine their heads
to fenced pastures and woodland PROCs. They learned from the marketplace and the ba's
favored animals that turned out good beef, leading to the selection of breeding stock
that thrived on proper care and feeding rather than wildwood hardness. The term bull
the woods came to be applied to other things. One popular brand of plug
style chewing tobacco was so named. My one encounter with a quick part from
Granddaddy William's plug ensured that it would never be popular with me. The term
was also applied to men, usually with the connotation of someone dominant or at
least extraordinary. This one man appropriated it for himself. Usually mister Lewis and
Clark was a quiet, ensuing man. Except for his being shrinking. He
seemed to be an almost model citizen. And Ben's drinking is an interesting phenomenon,
a practice followed by several men that I knew back then. Most would
not drink a drop of alcohol for weeks, even months, then consumed with
the point of drunk and is constantly for days. Perhaps this pattern reflects the
fact of farmers had to stay sober doing crucial parts of the crop here and
full fell off the wagon after the harvest, are doing long holidays in in
case, Lewis and Clark went on a bench and decided to go exploring.
When his wife decided that he had been long gone gone long enough for her
to be concerned, she'd went looking for him Eventually she heard his voice and
then found totally nude in the middle of a brie patch, proclaiming, I
am a buller wood. Picture Dusty. Read that sentence again, please and
picture Cody's mom. Eventually she heard his voice and found him totally nude in
the middle of a brie pat, proclaiming, I'm a brother wouldn't been here
that what the fuck's going daddy? I got my cock in my head and
I'm on a fucking bright pitch and I'm a bull of wood and I'm getting
off. And if you're the bull dust, what would that fuck count?
Mother fuck out? I think we're ready up table for two and shown he's
please. And when he's sobered up enough to discover all those scratches on pots
of his anatomy that had never been described before, he decided that he was
not cut out to be the bull of wood but a piece. What a
piece? I forgot to mention, And I'm glad you reminded me that while
Roger G. Branch Senior does profess at Georgia Southern University, he is in
fact Foghorn Leghorn from New Orleans. Don't assume that just because he teaches at
Georgia Southern that he is at George Jackson. That's right. I also send
you another piece bus that I wish you could share with the solar system.
This one a little less modern. It's kind of like a vintage explanation from
the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which I supposed to be the part of the
country, of course, the Dusty grew up in, and the part of
the country he would have first been made aware of and become acquainted with,
the lore of the Bull of the Woods. This is from nineteen sixty six,
and it's about a bull named Stormy who apparently, through some like formal
competition, was named the Bull of the Woods. Okay, where you're sunding
to me? Oh my my, apologies, it's in your email. This
is a good old fashioned clipping bar. A man's field, Texas. N't
going nowhere? Where the fuck did it go? Motherfucker? What's going on
here? Bad bull? Bad bull? Motherfucker man's field? All right here
we are, No what the fuck's it doing? This shit? I can
read it, all right, I got I got it, I got it
all right. Storming of the Bull of the Woods nets top bucks for bucking
Mansfield. Can you please read that headline again slowly, storm Bull of the
Woods nets nets top bucks for bucking. Got it all right? Let me
take that one back to the lab and figure out what it means. By
the way, it's oh the Woods its spelled oh, oh the bull of
the Woods Bull the Woods, Oh willow the whist all right. None of
the Kyle Bell rodeo bull has made the big time. He is a little
faulty and looks he wouldn't be judged the top prospect as a herd sire and
wouldn't bring very much per pound through the sale ring. But no one could
say he's disturbed about it. He's diabolical talent is carrying him to the top.
Dick and jack ratching producers of the Cowbell Rodeo in Mansfield and reputable bull
entrepreneurs have said they're Stormy young bucking bull bull Oh the Woods Dusty also a
bull entrepreneurs the Bill McKee, a Rodeo Cowboys Association and stock crontractor of Savory,
Wyoming, for a large but undisclosed amount of money. As far as
they know, it is the second highest priced highest price ever paid for a
rodeo bull, the highest price ever paid for one was for another Cowbell rodeo
bull by the name of Speedy Gonzalez. The Ratchean brothers said Speedy old Speed
and McKee about a year and a half ago for an undisclosed amount of money,
but they are quick to say the price was well in the five figures,
and considering the way Speedy began strewing the RCA bull riders across arenas all
over the country, McKee made a goodbye. He ended the nineteen sixty five
rodeo season unridden, and as a rookie RCA bull, he came within two
votes being selected the Outstanding Bucking Bull of the World. When Bill Cornell,
world Champion bull rider in nineteen sixty three, drew Speedy at the National Finals
rodeo in Oklahoma City last December, an interviewer asked him how we planned to
try to ride him. He replied that he didn't have the slightest idea because
he had never heard of anyone who stayed on him long enough, who stayed
on him long long enough to know just what all he could do. So
this is like, you know, rodeo bulls. Yes. A little while
after that, Speedy Gonzalez died of dustnemon is that our Dusty died dumb the
dath pneumonia, dad at big death pneumonia. He had been bucked out in
actual four hundred and forty two times and had had twenty seven riders who had
drawn him refused to even get on him, and had never been ridden to
the never been ridden to the whistle. He was nine years old and in
his prime when he died bull the woods called prime beef. Damn right.
He was a four year old. He had barely started his bucking career when
speed he went to the big Time. But since he started spinning and kicking
his heels up in the rodeos, he has been bucked out of total seven
three seventy three times without ever having been written, and some people say that
he already has more spectator fans than any other bucking bull gone. Many of
them spent a full six weeks this year submitting names to the Kyle Bell Rodeo
that would have fit his champions stature and colorful future. They finally came up
with one he now has. They can feel they have some stake in his
future, and the Big Time say that again they can also taste that they
have some steak in the future in the big town has some steak in his
feature maybe like right after the show, Yeah right, maybe maybe every morning
for breakfast. His first RCA rodeo will be an Ogden, Utah, and
from there he will move he will move on to one of the grandest of
them all, the Shine Frontier Days Rodeo and Shine Wylming got along with Dusty
So yeah right, talk about bulls, bulls and bull of the bull of
the woods, right right, talk about fucking big fields and you know,
and hunting open prairies and open prairies and fresh air and breathing and tiny post
offices that's right, right that are only open for two hours a day.
I ain't gonna name if they're going to be weather awesome not bad weather weather.
Most betting that his perfect record won't be marred by the big bulls there
or for many of the big shows that come. Speede. Gonzalis was cold
black, with a curly, hornless head, and weighed about fifteen hundred pounds.
After he took on his mature flesh, yummy. He came out of
the bucking shoot in a furious spin and sometimes just turned and dumped the cowboy
back into the shoot they came from. And then he had a proud way
of strutting from the arena when he finished his brief flurry bull the woods comes
out of the shoot in a furious spin too, and many has been dumped.
The time has been the time he just dumped the rider back in the
shoot, And they say he acts so proude when he trots from the arena.
You can hear the bull riders gritting their teeth in anger. The bull
weighs about thirteen hundred pounds now, but he will eventually fill out to about
fifteen hundred pounds and his head is hornlessen Curly. I want you to read
that again, And when did you say bull? Think Dusty it's gonna Dusty
weighs about thirteen hundred pounds now, but he will eventually fill out to about
fifteen hundred pounds and his head is hornlessened curly. Sup must be the seventies
Destiny Daddy fuck it in size looking town. He is almost exactly like Speediegnzals.
The only difference is that he is white is a sheet. Seems clear
he is being touted as Speedies replacement. No one has complained about his name,
but some have suggested that he just as he could just as well be
called Speedy's ghost. Now, there's a lot of things I feel like we've
accomplished over ten years of the lapsed fan. But yes, bringing back to
life this nineteen sixty six right up on Bull of the Woods and whoever wrote
this, where are you gone? I'm like, what? What? What
did I right there? Oh? I'm right, I'm sure you're proud of
it? Then what? Absolutely, I'm not proud of anything. Listen,
I want to tell you. I'm wanna tell you right now, I'm not
proud of a damn thing. Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you,
And don't you tell me otherwise. All right, So let's hear from Dusty
here. These are some clips from a shoot interview he did in nineteen ninety
nine with RF Video rob Minsteining Company. Rather famously, A Cody, a
young Cody must have been like ten years old or whatever, twelve or maybe
he's in high school, was kind of walking around in the background. He's
on a camera, but Dusty makes reference to him milling about the home.
So this is Dusty after wc W had gotten rid of him, after he
was sort of cast about and in the wrestling business and trying to find a
way to you like a Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling promotion. He started he wanted to
do like a fantasy camp for wrestlers, and eventually Paul Hayman hires him in
ECW and he does a program with Steve Karino that's been referenced that was referenced
in some of the interactions that Cody had with Paul Hayman where you know,
they got teary eyed over the notion that Dusty was down on his luck and
Paul found a way to get him paid respect for the family. And so
that's sort of the position Dusty's in, so he's not really in a position
to give a fuck. He's you know, the business has kind of spit
him out a little bit. So he's shooting and it's a great interview and
it's pretty much the only one of its type I've seen from dust. I
know there's some things in several shooting interviews he did. He did one that
we excerpted from an Art of War Games with Gabe Zapolski going through his book
from nineteen eighty seven with all the dates and the cards and everything in it.
But this is, uh, I think the definitive career shooting interview.
I'd encouraged to check it out. But here he is kind of setting the
scene for us for what it was like to compete with Vince in the eighties.
What was it like to fight Vince had on in the eighties. It
was fun because you would go to you would go to a Philly well.
You would be in the civic Center and they would be at the spectrum.
We started with twelve hundred people or nine hundred people in the civic center.
Pretty soon we got eight thousand. We're busting balls, the warriors and you
know, and uh uh everybody there. We're busting balls in that building.
And we'd go to the Marriott. Let's close the room off and would all
sit back there together, you know, I mean, WWF and a in
Wa and uh Crockett. And it was good. It was a war.
And you always wondered what they were doing and what I mean. We couldn't
get in their buildings, you know, we would get one of their buildings
and do good. We would get a building in Pittsburgh and do the ships.
Except for the record to date in Pittsburgh arena with me in the Boston
Man, Me and Big Blabba and the cage scalping chickets. That's when we
finally turned in there. It was again, okay, well it's Dusty Rose,
but who the who the hell do you think Big Bubba put all the
people in the building. How do you think they fucking got in the building.
It was a package that I put with me with you. It was
a package. But then there's a match that there's all there's something up here
at the end that they would die to see. You know. That's limp
dig Biscuit, limb Biscuit, Uh, limb Biscuit, who are great kids,
but they're that's them here and they might have four other bands here.
Doesn't mean they're worse than them. But there's somebody that you want to see.
So that that was a turning point for the company, the Pittsburgh Show.
Uh, And I think if we hadn't tried to run the whole world,
we would have probably still been there, you know, without the move
to Texas and everything. But uh, it was uh and vinced was uh
conversations back and forth. We always kept in touch. Junior and myself.
We grew up to business at the same age we grew up together. I
was a start for him. So we kept we kept in touches. We
still do today. You know, even when he computed to kept Yeah,
yeah, yeah, it was not It was not a like you know,
how you're doing or whatever, not not much what ever said about the business
right, And he had a great ability to make you feel bad, you
know what I mean because of how you know, we cud. He just
kicked your ass without saying it. You know, that's just the way it
was. But yeah, it was great. Kicked your ass without saying it's
right, that's right. So that's right. The notion that Vince and Dusty
were talking collegiately and socially during the course of all this warfare we're discussing,
I just I love the notion. I love the idea that Dusty thinks he's
still friends with Vince while Vince completely destroys weakly ever been. I mean,
we're we're all friends. I mean we have we have, you know,
a compatible nature of individuality and desire. I just wonder, you know,
frankly, when it came down to pick up the phone and catch up with
dust what would that sound, dyke? But big fin babies. It's a
big conm duff the roads. Oh dad, if if the big duff,
Daddy, big duff. Does anyone know a big duff? No, not
at that big duff daddy Duff the roads. Oh yeah, yes, yes,
Hi. What can I do for you, sir? Maybe I'm just
going to say hello, we're gonna I just wanted to check in, Daddy.
I know that you've been You've been doing the thing, baby, You've
been working the business, You've been doing so well that fails and taking care
of Thames. But just want to check in and see how you're doing,
Daddy. Uh, well, I would like to say that. Can can
somebody tell me? Hold hold on? Dusty? He wants to know how
I'm doing? Can somebody please tell me how I'm doing? All right?
Okay, Dusty, I'm fine. That's great, Daddy. He's so excited
to talk to this guy. Well, Dad, I just felt happy about
that. Baby. You know, I'll check it in. You know how
Linda doing? Baby? Hold hold on? This is gonna take all day,
Dusty. Are we gonna keep asking? Are you just keep asking questions?
Or do you have something to actually hold on? How's Linda doing?
Does anyone know has anyone seen Linda? Oh? Wait, all right,
which lind are you talking about? Maybe I'm talking about your wife, Daddy?
Right, No, No, my wife's not Hogan. What she She's
fine? She's not fine? Action what I'm getting conflicting stories here? Dost
he she? Dusty? The truth that she may be fine, she may
not be fine. We're not sure. We're checking in on that. What
else can I do for your Palin? Well? Baby, I just wanted
it. I just wanted to fit in chatting daddy talk about the old time,
baby, talk about the good time in the business together, getting him
in the business. Baby. You know I'm gonna talk about your dad,
Dusty. We don't talk about my dad. We don't talk about him.
He's dead and he's dead to me. But uh, okay, well what
about this baby? Let's talk about you know what? You know? What's
going on in your personal life? Baby? Ware? You band? Who
are you? Who are you going around with? Who you're hanging out with?
Baby? How have a hoax for doing? Daddy? You haven't dinner?
Baby? What's going on? Baby? I want to know? Well?
You well, you see dust Uh, what's going on? I guess
I'm in the process right now of booking it down. That will come from
the obliterate you. I mean what I'm doing is, uh, you know,
we are we are in the midst the WWE, in the midst of
of a of a of a big transformation. That's digital transformation. He says
digital transformation in nineteen eighty six. You mean digital trans We talk on Daddy
digits on Well, Dusty, what we're trying to do is, at the
end of the day, we're trying to create a cloud based So Dusty wasn't
the only one with his head in the clouds. A cloud based bandwidth U
line alignment. But what a hypo? But I know you scale it.
What if it's ship you talking about finnergy? Is that what you're talking about?
Yeah, well, Dusty, we are talking about synergy. I'm talking
about paradigm, synergy, learnings, holistic natures and things of that nature.
We're talking about. Uh, you know what is you know the big question
we have here in the w w E is what is going to be the
next gen thing? Hey, you asked him what's on his mind? You
want to make small talk? This is what you get. Maybe what what
next gen? What are you talking about dust The bottom line is we get
there are a lot of big things, a lot of it's technical. You
know, we have you know, we're looking at a holistic culture here in
the WWE with buy ins and and uh you know ro Ois, you know
influencers, But what the fuck is an influence? What do you mean?
What what? I guess the computer took your plans? Dad, I guess
I guess. What I'm saying is that, you know what, a computer
took your place, daddy. And here's a nice gold watch, and go
pay your wages, your dumb stick. So that Pittsburgh show he's talking about
was February twenty seventh, nineteen eighty seven, at the Civic Arena, sold
out house north of sixteen thousand fans to see in the main event, Dusty
Rhoades defeat Big Bubba and a steel cage match which was called the Bunk House
Stampede Finals. So maybe that's where Dusty got me. You know what,
Winter Northeast, we did a hell of a house last year, right,
and then Bubba leaves him. So you know exactly what show convinced McMahon to
make an entreaty to Big Bubba. Probably this show and yeah, so maybe
you can start to see why Dusty's mind would go to the Bunkhouse Stampede for
nineteen eighty eight when he needed something that was able to fill in Northeast Arena
and be paper view quality, or we should have tried better at pay per
view quality. Yeah, yeah, that's a because there's a much better card
Dusty Bubble one on one in a cage that as the bunk House Final four
hundred grand that works one hundred, Nikida's US Champ against Flair as World Champion,
right US champers World Champ second from the top, similarly to the Hawk
match finishes by DQ. But that's that's another story. They had Ruden Fernandez
over the Rock and Rolls for the Tag Championships, they had Tully and Tim
Horner, Les Luger in action. They solid card again that did I guess
there's conflicting numbers. Some say seventeen five twenty one, some say sixteen thousand,
six hundred. Either way, it was a sellout in Pittsburgh, which
is, you know, very important and very impressive. Yeah, for sure,
not something you hear, but when they come back for not something you
would expect when this show bunk House is presented as like this almost first foray
into the Northeast, that was a total flop. It's like, no,
actually, they had already done all the towns. They had done Philly,
like Crazy, Pittsburgh, New York, even this building in fact, with
war games into a hell of a house and back Jenry twenty fourth, it's
only six thousand in attendance, so's there's no there there any longer. But
a nice color from the Amaic and dream. They're talking about competing with Dust
with Vince in the eighties and the boys getting together, you know, when
they were in overlapping towns and talking amongst themselves. We excerpted this on the
Rumble eighty eight show because it was relevant. We'll do it again here on
the bunk House Show because it's relevant. These passages here set the stage beautifully
from Shauna sales, book, sex, lies, and headlocks. In retrospect,
he would have been better off with a more developed sense of paranoia because
Vince McMahon had no intention of letting Crockett crash a party heat started. WrestleMania
three had turned into the mother of all pay per view events up to that
point. On the heels of his success, Vince announced that he was going
to air a new event called Survivor Series on Thanksgiving, the very same day
as Stark eighty seven. A cable company that wanted Survivor's series not to mention
future WWF events had to promise it wouldn't air any other pay per view that
day. It was a bloodbath. Only five cable companies out of the original
two hundred stayed loyal to the Crocketts and put Starcade on. Starcade wound up
being bought by just fifteen thousand homes, leaving the company to take in just
eighty thousand dollars after expenses. Crockett might have weathered it if he had a
strong base, but as he looked around, he realized that the twin revenue
streams he'd hoped would carry him to the top pay per view income and national
advertising sales were bone dry. What he needed was a salesforce akin to the
one Vince It built. Instead, all he had was a few fast talking
consultants in New York at a bunch of greatful wrestlers driving Mercedes in Dallas.
As he turned to his bankers to make up for cash flow, problems,
resentments, and the family began to flare. David, who'd grown up sharing
the same room with his brother, had the choke back discussed every time he
flew to Dallas and saw the suite of marble floored offices bearing his father's name,
Big Jim Crockett. Their father always told him never to flaunt their money
before the public, which is why he ran things out of his house until
his wife got a new white carpet. Only then did he move his office
to a boarded up convenience store marble floors. David was sure their father was
turning in his grave. Like many of the wrestlers, David also believed that
Rose was running on fumes. For one thing, he'd all but given up
on writing. The days of his half hour classic matches were gone, replaced
by bland a Blinking You miss A playlets. Roads argued that he didn't want
to give away the best material free on television because he needed to save it
for pay per view. Either way, the Saturday night show on TBS that
McMahon had left with the five point three rating was doing a two point nine.
In October nineteen eighty seven, the Enway extended down to the arena shows,
where Roads insisted on penciling himself in his Flaire's challenger, long after the
fan stopped caring worse he'd fallen in love with the transparent trick, ending Dusty
would win their matches, only to have the referee to squalify him and a
technicality after the bell told. The scheme allowed Flare to retain the NWA belt,
but at a cost his title was diminished, while Roads, whose weight
problem was becoming embarrassing, clung to the limelight. At Christmas nineteen eighty seven,
Roads launched a last gasp series of punkhouse stampede events in which two dozen
wrestlers started in a ring and got eliminated. That's not quite accurate. He
was already doing those and got eliminated his eachist and over the ropes until one
was left standing. Roads at wrestlers flinging garbage cans and tire irons while dressed
in stetsons and spurs, and after eight successful shows, he decided to turn
the whole thing into a pay per view. The main event was to be
a cage match, literally a match held inside a locked wire cage placed over
the ring. Among the prior eight bunk House Winners. Once again, he
penciled himself into in the main event. The Jury twenty fourth, nineteen eighty
eight show might have done business in Atlanta or Dallas, yet Crockett inexplicably decided
to stage it at Long Island. It's not inexplicable. He did great business
there in November, Long Island's Nassau Colisseum, a place that owed more to
Billy Joel than Billy Jack. Making matters worse. Mcmaan once again counter programmed
another show aimed to hobble Crockett. This tied me decided to attack the a
cable, creating a Battle Royal of his own and airing it free on USA.
More than three million homes tuned in to see the show called The Royal
Rumble, a record up to that time for the network and the most homes
ever tuned to a wrestling show, that is to sand Cable. Jim Cornette
remembers sitting in the Colisseum's locker room for the Crockett show and looking around at
the long faces. We wanted to be there like we wanted to have our
mothers hooked up to a machine, he said. The crowd was dead.
They hated everything because they've never seen it. They hate everything. What they
hated, Jim, was that matches went twenty five minutes and ended via DQ.
Yes. What they hated was Nikita Coloff with one of the best workers
in the business, Bobby Eaton, working a hammer lock for fifteen of those
twenty minutes. That's exciting stuff. But they hated was the fact that no
one cared enough to put together a card that had any significance for these people
in terms of the results. Yep. After it was over, several wrestlers
climbed into it. They hated everything because they'd never seen it. Cornett's quoted
as saying they just saw it November in this building. After it was over,
several wrestlers climbed into a limousine to head to the Helmsley Palace hotel in
Manhattan. I think that's a innacurate I think it was another hotel. As
we'll get to a Tony Schavanne who remembers a different hotel. Tully Blanchard,
who was in a foul mood, was one of them. Dusty just shook
himself. Pardon me, Dusty should just book himself against Dusty. Tully muttered,
at the hotel bar, Blanchard's mood got worse. This is the post
match scene I was talking about with every new drink that got pored. Finally,
he and Crockett exchanged words. Dusty's a genius, Crockett insisted and walked
away. What a pitch now, I was thinking about it. Dust's genius.
I'm telling you he's a genius. I believe he's a genius, and
I believe that he has only just scratched the surface of his ability as a
book. If you know better than him, Telly, i'd ask, what,
why isn't your daddy in business anymore? Well, I'm gonna do right
now. I'm gonna go up to my room and buy a porn over.
That's correct, Jim Crockett. That was the problem is he would go to
his room and important decisions had to be made and just tent polled, set
up shop in his room, and just had like a forty five minutes sash
Right fell asleep because he couldn't, because he couldn't get a woman right,
he couldn't do all this stuff. He couldn't he couldn't play like the fucking
four horsemen. So instead he just imagined it. Remember that one time you
had laps to Vince say about Seawn Michaels. He taught me to dance.
This notion that Sean Michael's made Vince feel cool and young and hip and attractive
by by you know, pushing him. It's exactly I feel like what Crockett
had with Dusty. Yeah, I listened, dust It makes me Dusty listened.
Dust He taught me what it was like to be a man. That's
right, all right, before I met I wasn't a man, and Dusty
taught me what it was beat what it was like to be a man,
to be, you know, a bull of the woods if you will.
And and now I can say, but I am, I'm the I'm the
bull of JCP. All right, That's what I am. And dust he's
my boy, alight again the bulls, the bulls of of of Jim Crockett
and uh and and you know what, you're gonna go get yourself a woman.
I'm gonna go get myself a woman. I'm gonna go up to my
room, get myself a woman. Some more smart expenditures of Crockett money fifteen
hotel room born. But that was it mean they would go to Vegas on
the jet, I said, star Dust on jet and they would take it
to Vegas just because, you know, they're on the West Coast doing shows
and they'd hooked to Vegas just so they could you know, party for a
little while. Or they'd go try to feel like hotshots in La or New
York City. You know, Dusty kind of convinced Jim that he was a
big city executive. And Dusty did that, in my sense of things,
because it served him. It served him to think that it served him to
get Jim to think that he was his link to being taken more seriously.
You know, it bothered Jim Crockett his whole life that he was perceived as
just like a Charlotte boy. You know, that he could only Stephen Charlotte
blah blah blah. But at the same he's a bitch. What's that's that's
a problem too. Yeah. Yet he has this like undying loyalty to people
that work for him, even when they're not up to the task of competing
on a national basis that that cost him as well, and just generally what
seems like an unwillingness to confront people. It's like he was one of those
guys that you know, like, even when it was abundantly clear that it's
time for conflict, it's time for confrontation, he would find a way around
it and just not do it and just stay the course instead of having uncomfortable
conversations. Dusty's a genius, Crockett insisted and walked away. According to the
Assale book, this thing is going to hell and he can't see it,
Blanchard said to no one in particular. Through the late winter and spring,
the hard travel and small audiences made it difficult for everyone to keep going.
Roads and Flaire started feuding, causing matches to be rewritten at the last minute
because they couldn't work together, and one instance, Crockett had to go to
Flaire's Charlotte home and beg him to work just to keep things afloat. Guaranteed
half million dollars contracts with balloon payments needed to be paid. And that's the
big thing. The big thing was it. When Vince started waiving that big
money around, Crockett was like, all right, I can get on pay
per view and make the money, So let me commit to these contracts with
the plan of the money coming in later and Vince found ways, for example,
Star Kat eighty seven, which they were highly counting on to make good
on these promises that they had made to keep all this talent came in so
low due to that power play that there was nowhere near the money he expected
to have on hand to pay these contracts out. And you know, these
guys are working and they're getting paid, not they're not getting paid on the
on the course, you would expect to meet that number with the promise that
come into the year will make you whole. And yeah, they could do
that, but pretty much just for one year, pretty much, just one
year could they afford to do that? And then it would it just blew
the books up, and the books already weren't in good shape. And that's
when people start saying, what did you look at this jet? And these
are all expenses of course that weren't necessary in the office. But I think,
really, when you get right down, speak for yourself, I do
believe that these are important, that these are necessities to the business. I
believe having you know, golden columns are essential to the to the the appearance
and the attitude of Jim Crockett promotions. I think having a statue commissioned and
made of my head, big old dumb ass head. You know, I
believe that that is important. You know, let me tell you that there
was there was no over the top spending the money. No, no,
clearly not. It was all done with what we needed to. Everything that
we spend money on was necessary to to to to succeed. Sweaty ass Jim
Crockett doing an interview on the CBS, say thank you. We're going to
do you have done. Someone wipe my brow, please please wipe my brow
for God's sake, something, Please wipe my fucking brow. Anybody. I
think that's a T shirt fellow out of Jim Crockett. You here for Jesus
Christ. Someone please whip my brow. Brow's not well, the brow is
in a moist state. I've got like an inch of liquid on top of
my brow. But again, you can sell you want about you know,
the jet travel and the office in Dallas and the fact there was even a
jet and these like wild like totally illogical arrangements of towns that don't you know,
that don't economize the loop, so guys are flying all over the place,
and the big fur coats and all that shit. You can say all
you want about that, but it's really contracts. It was. It was
the promises made to keep talent in a time where Vince was able to overpay
and willing to overpay, especially if acquiring a talent would hurt Crockett. That
was really and that's always been his emo. We've talked about this at nauseum
now, Like you think it's not a Vince kind of wrestler, but it
becomes a Vince kind of wrestler, like Jericho at ninety nine and the Radicals,
all these guys you think he would never want. He wants you real
bad, Cody. He wants you real bad. When it can rip the
heart out of the other guy and put them on the ropes. That's when
he wants you. That's when he wanted the Von Eric's badly. It's all
the same. So here's Tully Blanchard in a shoot interview with RF video kind
of explaining like the full gamut of people that were owed these kind of huge
money deals and and sort of the set up for failure. That was some
of the contractual promises being made around this time in Jim Crockett promotions. Actually,
the whole deal was this My contract had run out with Crockett in like
April. They were not pushing to renegotiate my contract. I was one of
the first five guys to sign a contract with guaranteed money. And it was
not guaranteed money per week. It was a yearly thing. Right, So
we've never changed our pay procedures. It's just if my income would not have
reached a certain level, he would have kicked in at the end of the
year. And my first contract was for three hundred thousand dollars guaranteed, whether
I got hurt or whatever. And I got seventy five the first year,
one hundred and the second year one hundred and twenty five, the third year
and then that had never been hurt of And so I just and this is
great. You know, Claire got one, Dusty got one. I got
one. I think Magnum got one, maybe Slater, I'm not sure who.
But in the meantime, the Road Warriors signed a big contract for five
hundred thousand dollars. They're Pander manager three hundred and sixty, for heaven's sakes,
paying Polo Ellering more than you paid me. An arn right, is
there something up wrong with that? Picture. But I had signed my deal
and I was happy. When my deal was up, I wanted to sign
a contract. I was supposed to fly to Dallas. They'd moved the office
to Dallas, and I had my first day off in like a month and
a half and I missed my plane in bad Wasn't that big a deal.
You know, we got to get this thing done and we'll do it again.
I anymore fly to Dallas anyway, didn't want to move to Dallas,
so they never really wanted, never tried real hard to meet me again and
tell he's faithful and he'll never do anything and he's loyal and da dada dat.
Well. In the process of this time, the negotiation for the sale
of Crockett Promotions to Turn and Broadcasting was going on, and during the summer
time they interviewed. Okay, they weren't in the hurry to meet with me,
but TBS's people had people. The guy that had eventually hired Jim Hurd,
and I forget his name, but we met with him. All the
stars had to go meet with these people and they'd ask you questions, and
really, my problem is, I'm just honest and never really been around the
corporate world or anything like that. So it has always been to my own
detriment. Unfortunately, the guy asked me, an arn this, this and
this, and I said this, this and this. I said, there's
a reason why we lost three TV stations this week because ratings and Dusty getting
back to your point a long time ago, is there comes a point whenever
you got the booker. And this is not against Dusty, this is against
anybody that ever had that position. Where when when, when you've only been
at Florida, the Florida territory or Georgia territory, one guy could could carry
the load. This had got bigger than anybody and nobody it was new ground.
So I mean, in Dusty's defense, it we'd gone someplace he didn't
know what to do. Is that why? I think this is what led
the Crocus failure. And we had got to the point where the guy calling
the shots couldn't be the star anymore because we needed more stars, okay,
and we were bigger than that. And so I said, I said that
in a meeting to these guys at TBS, and it made Crockett mad,
and it made dust too mad. And but those people asked questions and opened
up to Pandora's box, and Crockett called me on the phone and told me
I wasn't loyal. Tell me you're not loyal. M I wonder who was
on the Who's on the background of that phone call. I'm Telly Blanchard.
Uh, this this is this is Jim Crocker, Jim Crockett, I got
I got something to tell you. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
What do you want me to tell him? Hey, I want you
to tell me it's not loyal, Daddy. What I don't understand, Daddy?
I want you to tell me it's not loyal. All right, He's
not Lord the mid Atlantic, Lord of JCP. Why am I to fucking
say a daddy? Okay, okay, ty Tyler, You're not loyal.
Hello, good story, bro, I'll talk to you later. Here's uh,
here's Dusty from that shoot kind of call. And Tully a pain in
the ascids money and Tully was not a big guy in the mold of Sean
Michaels. Maybe good talk, uh, good finishes. What's who's foreigner?
Maybe at times you know, I made a lot of money with him.
When you think back, you don't want money with money when you take three
hundred four und grand six hundred grand compared to it fifty seven hundred, eight
hundred thousand bucks from the interry in different eras. But I made a lot
of money with the Tully. But I think Tully received the spinoff of flair,
you know, uh, and the Horsemen were the first electrified group in
the history guy industry. That was kind of different. And where did that
all come from? So you said, you know? But and I think
Tully actually called the Fraith one time on TV. I took that, and
I would like to take credit for that, but I'm not sure if I
said it or he said it or but I think Tully did it, and
we took it and ran with it. And that sounds like farting. What
the fuck is that? What's what's that's? His dog is asleep next to
him in snow? Oh my god, he makes reference to it. It's
hilarious. I mean, it's like living wow. So okay, so Tully's
a pain in the ass and it's tremendous yea. And but yeah, that's
famously why Telly and Arn ended up in WWF was you know, the the
purchasers from Turner Home entertainment or whatever you must say. Turner Enterprises during broadcasting,
we're doing due diligence interviews before they bought Jim Crockett Promotions and right talking
to people and what's supposed to be in confidence about what they think is right
and what they think is wrong about the organization and what the new ownership should
consider changing. And Telly Blanchard, who has that excerpt from the Shawn of
Sale book indicates is loose with his tongue when it comes to uh verbalizing.
At least he was at the time what he what he thought was unjust or
wrong or crooked about a situation, spoke right up and he kind of he
softballs out a little bit in that shoot interview, but it basically lays it
on the shoulders of Dusty, somebody that had pissed him off, and said,
you know, that's the problem. And then naturally the idea that what's
said in this room is held in strict confidence is complete bullshit. Of course,
the word immediately gets to Dusty and Crockett, thus leading to the phone
call that Tully mentioned where disloyalty is broached. So that's just great stuff.
It's fucking amazing around this time too, Terry Taylor got let Go from again.
I love, I've always loved and I will always love. Just how
fucking how fucking the backstabbing in this business for something that's so it's not even
something that that that that's regarded with respect from most people, you know,
and so to have all this shit go on backstage, the fact these guys
don't all look look at each other and say, you know, we're goddamn
lucky that we all, when working together, can pull the wool over the
public's eyes to the point that they make this millionaires. They all just fight
with each other about who deserves some credit for it all, and none of
it's real, Like, right, I mean it's real that you can,
you know, this guy can draw better than the next guy, this guy
can have better matches. But it's not not a competition. It's not no
right, I mean, they're not going out there like you know. Again,
it's it's amazing how there's more how there's there seems to be more tension
in a fake sport than in a real sport. It kind of makes sense
because in a real sport, you say whatever you want about politics and it's
valid. It's it's it's a part of the business in any sport. But
at the end of the day, are you going to produce on the field
or on the court or not. You have a chance to shove it down
the throat of people who might say things like you're not worth the money right
the spotlight you get right by winning or not, and that just to sort
of like the proving ground, there's sort of like a moment of objectivity.
I still hold to the thesis that that's why so many wrestling fans embraced you
FC in two thousand and five when they put Ultimate Fighting Run after rob because
that show gave you pro wrestling style build up to a showdown, and the
icing on top of it is that it's an actual fight. Yea, brother,
what was that? I'm sorry? That was a sound that just came
out of Noah. Yeah, yeah, Okay, tell me more what it
was the sound? I can't tell you because it's about under the sentiment okay,
good one, good job. Yeah I had a thing. Uh yeah,
No I can't, I can't. I can't share it tremendous. So
it's like, wait, we're getting this great conflict build up that we love
about pro wrestling, and then we actually don't know who's gonna win. It's
actually gonna be decided by real fists and feet flying fuck pro wrestling, you
know, Yeah, it's funny. I'm that never really excited me about it.
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of funny, you know, Like I
just like you never you know, you would just watch fights cold. You
wouldn't see interviews building up. Yeah the stakes if this guy, you know,
is made to look like a bitch, it's funny how I just never
really cared to put the time in, Yeah, to care about a fighter
outside of Brocklesner. It makes sense. That's why Brock's box office was on
a different level for so many years. Was contract that contingent of fans that
were only willing to do exactly what you were describing get invested when he was
involved. Yeah, so so great stuff there. We mentioned that this is
all around the time that that Lex Luger broke off from The Horseman. In
fact, it was December second, nineteen eighty seven when he turned on the
Horseman. This is from Jim Dillon's book Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls. Eventually,
Lex left the Four Horsemen at December second, nineteen eighty seven, he turned
on me. Sorry, I still think that is the stupidest, terrible,
terrible title. It's it's it's awful. I mean, I don't know how
many times I've combed through that book to remember why he titled at that at
which he explains, and I still don't remember it. That's how stupid it
is so embarrassing. You know, he's such a fucking idiot. He's tremendous.
The guy has such an amazing diversity of experience in the business. When
you think about don't care, I don't care. It's a great He's a
loser. Oh, he's not tremendous asset business. You know what, as
long as he names his fucking book that loser doesn't help. On December second,
nineteen eighty seventy, he turned on me during a bunk house stampede in
Miami Beach and solidified his face turn, giving us yet another fresh opponent.
Lex worked against Flair at the God American Bash in Baltimore, Maryland, on
July tenth, nineteen eighty eight. So that's still to come here. In
eighty eight, we were trying to figure out how to end the match without
having to pin Luger at the time the Maryland Commission issued a ruling there was
to be no blood, and we know all of that. We know the
Bash eighty eighth story and the blood that appears in the match. So the
point is that despite the missed opportunity, many would consider to not put Luger
over in the bunk House Stampede on pay per view and get people gassed up
about seeing him go for the world title later in eight. They don't do
it, and it still happens anyway. That's how obvious it was. Lex
still ends up campaigning for the championship and coming into the bunk House Stampede.
You know, viewers close viewers of Crockett Television, I think would also have
reason to think that they were leading the fans to conclude that this would be
a crowning achievement night for Lex Luger. It's not like people just invented the
thought that it would be nice if Lex one based on their sense of the
landscape. He was telling them to get excited. Here's a promo from Crockett
Television from the Total package on the Bunkow Stampede. Coverers of National Magazine cards
and letters by the thousands of this man who Lex Luger, and he's battling
against go four horses, no tortfone. Tonight is a big night, the
big event of the big up best, the final of a bunk house stampede.
Now, if you're out here, Tony, I do listen. Arn
Anderson, Untilly Pride Short. They probably drop the money stretch. They're the
funny tune unit. There'll be two guys in there, there'll be working together
and they're gonna win all the money. Let's put it what you see that
doesn't work like that, bitch is the n W way. We're the best
switchers in the world now and this is a turn of the toughest prefessman and
professional wrestler day, all that are going the same time. For the cage
around him, There'll be no friends, there'll be no team where you will
be able to tag hit it out. So will be our drags top be
headlocked chignal rule. That's not half Garion stellars by the line. So you
see, I've been there. I've been in the press for fifteen years of
football, seven years of professional I've been trained for this night, but there's
never been anything like it, and I'll tell you right now, I've been
a lot of big predictions for the year to a lot of the people say
big predictions for the Kicker chickens. Think of a better way to take it
off, and I'll walk out of NASSAUF calls m a half million dollars pincher
and the winner of the book House Stampagne. I don't know, Bosses that
promo get you excited about Lex winning the bunk House Stampede. It's pretty much
designed to make you think he's gonna win it. I mean it. I
don't know. There's something weird about Lex Luger promos. Lex Luger is better
for me when he just wins at things. When he talks, he's he's
I've never heard someone come across so monotone yet be so loud and full of
expression. Spastic is yeah, you know, exploding and like it's almost like
he's having an episode more than talking. It's it's very it's it's always very
uncomfortable for me to hear him promo because he's so I can't say I'm excited
for it, but but just like the wrestling logic of it coming right off
that I mean talking about right, I'm talking about it. Yeah, I
mean he should probably maybe he should have gone and one it. I can
see listening to that promo why people would come into the Bunk House Stampede expecting
someone other than Dusty to win it, because it seems like, well,
that's just that's just that's that's being that's just plain stupidity. Yeah, it
turns out to be you should no, no, no, you should always
just go in there expecting Dusty to win. Yeah. Yeah, I know,
I'll save you a lot of trauma. I wonder if they were betting
once back then, if Dusty would have come in the favorite, if that
prevailing wisdom would have held in the time period. So we hear how Luger
was talking about the Bunk House Stampede coming into the show. They did have
a Sunday syndicated show I believe that was worldwide. So there was an episode
of Crockett syndicated television that aired the day of the Bunk House Stampede pay per
view. So a lot of these promos, you know, cut the week
before or two weeks before to TV taping I believe in West Virginia are referring
to tonight, tonight, tonight. So that was pretty good advertisement for the
show. Here's how arn't Anderson and Tully Blanchard talk about the Monk House Stampede
ahead of the pay per view and of course the notion of you know,
teaming together as the horsemen do to gain advantages in multi person environments. Okay,
here we are, look four horsemen together. These two men in the
championship tonight have an astok policy. You know, Tony Shivani. Everybody talking
about freez ass three that what you have is Rick Flair? Aren't Anderson tell
me lactor J J. Jillen that's four. And I don't think that mapromatics
has changed that much. So all you intellect, your datis is out there.
Please remember four horsemen. That's the way it's started, such a way
it's always been, and that's the way it will always be. Now you're
talking about the finals, it is the greatest thing that has ever happened.
Papers your falled. I just all over the country, all over the world
tonight, ten men fighting for I have a million dollars over the time.
The ain't got the door whatever it is. But you'll think about it all
individuals. There's only one team that made it to the bunk House Finals.
Aren't Anderson only lectured the world Tag team champion. And that's exactly what it
is. It's a unit. Everybody else gonna be worried about who's shitting in
the back whatever. Arene and I will function as you've already seen as the
ultimate unit in professional wrestling. You got running the world Warriors has gone.
You've only got animals. It's you and me, baby two fifty apiece.
I can spend that, Holly. We don't need any more money as far
as that goes. But I don't explain to you people as in New York
City, a city that has bread hold mullet, you've got people sleeping in
the streets, the population of state people as long to the most small town,
you've got people they want cut their grandmother's throat. Put us a few
dollars in sames. I'm talking about it. People stay there and tell doing
whatever they can do for a few mini siy dollars. Now, Luger,
When you getting a buck out stampede and you look around, you won't say
one friend you won't find. If you think that's too old, throw more
around him off. So bud So war Lord Tully, Blackier myself are gonna
help you for money that side sum of money. You're out of your mind.
So Luga keep in mind one thing. This is a big deal for
the Earsman. We want to win the second ship for the start Paine,
for Luga. We're seeing this as a chance in a case standing with you,
what's the problem? Sure, yesterday, same type of pelly. You
don't, Hey, listen, you don't if we listen to Luga talk told
maybe you I shouldn't even show up. And that's the lot it turns off,
aren't Interston Tully Blanchard totally Blanchard at time sounds like Larry's a biscuit.
How many glorious years is it? Tully? But again, you know,
trying to hold on to the notion of the horsemen there while Dusty tries to
de emphasize them. I mean, they're getting beat every night and whipped around,
and it's like they're going on like three consecutive years now of like the
Horseman just getting fucking plump pummeled everywhere and still being a huge part of the
reason anybody buys tickets to these shows. Unbelievable, So it's it never really
the beat never changes, daddy, and that's a big part of the problem
as well. But that's how the wrestlers were cutting promos leading into the show.
Here's Tully all those years later in the shoot interview kind of talking about,
you know, his his mentality about the whole event and looking back on
the frustration of Dusty ultimately coming away the victor. So we go from Tully
in eighty eight to Tully and like whatever, this was ninety nine and he
was asked to do things that he couldn't and so when he didn't get the
push, okay, we switched in baby face and his first thing as a
baby face, he doesn't win a battle Royal New York and our first show
on Long Island. And that was a mistake. That that was That was
a booking calculated mistake because it tarnished a guy that you just switched baby face
and made him and also ran. Okay, even though he was six five
and and built, he needed the push of winning the baby face he needed
to be the guy. Okay, Dusty was already over. He didn't need
the push. Okay, he didn't need to win that match, and Luger
did and because the other happened, it started a downfall. In fact,
in a limousine driving back to Manhattan to go to the hotel that night,
I told, I told Francis Crockett and David Crockett, I said, this
is the Titanic, and uh and uh you got you got two engine rooms
full of water and uh. I'm not sure they liked it or even remember
it, but I remember saying it and uh, uh because it was it
was. It was a bad stake that night, pretty clear. Yeah,
all right, I mean I I can't agree with him. I mean I
can't disagree with him. Rather, I mean, sure Luger, Luger should
have won, for sure. It's it's interesting, you know, I think
he puts it all differently there than Shawn of Sale does in the book.
He says, you know, the twin engines and the Titanic on the limousine,
as opposed to in the hotel afterwards. Not to say Tully didn't mouth
off at the hotel afterwards, but I find it interesting that he he he
remembers it being in the limousine with the Crocketts and sort of more of a
confidence than a public blow up, you know, he's talking about Luger,
and everyone's talking about Luger kind of being getting raw dealed in this thing.
It's not like he gives a fuck like Luker's just, you know, all
he wants to make sure he's paid. That's oh my gosh, oh my
gosh. Yeah. Absolutely, he doesn't give a shit. I know he
doesn't care. Yeah, that's one thing about Luger in this in this time
period is he is all business, all business. And as long as the
eyes are audit and the teases crossed, and the wife approves of the contract
language, and he's got Polo sweaters, no doubt, he's not going to
be the person complains even if he should be put over. But people who
have a problem with Dusty, like Tully, latch right onto this finish of
the Punk House main event to make their case. Tony Schavanni is also someone
who agrees with Tully's perspective on things, as he explained on his podcast about
this show, Here's what I remember. I remember the line that that Flair
put in his book where Tully said Dusty Rhodes should wrestle Dusty Rhodes. He
said that line to me in the limousine going back, and if I recall,
and I think I'm right, there were two separate limousines going back,
and I wasn't in limousine with Arne Tully and Jju and Flair wasn't another limousine.
I'm not so sure who was with him, but he said that line
to me, and when we got to a Harry's bar, he went and
confronted Jimmy with it. Jimmy said something that night that kind of took me
a back. Now let me preference this by saying that I was always a
supporter of Dusty Rhodes. I thought he had some true and there's no question
he had no one but put as much effort and thought into booking matches he
had, and up until this time he had made some pretty big money for
Jimmy Crockett. I don't think there was any question. I remember that night.
I don't know if it was after Tully confronted him or before, and
I think it was after Tully confronted Jimmy because I was there. Jimmy's kind
of shook his head and he said that Dusty Rhodes was a genius. I
remember him saying that line, and I remember thinking to myself. I love
Dusty, I love his booking, but doesn't Jimmy see what's going on.
Lex Luger should have won the Bunk House Stampede. That was talked about in
the limousine when I was talking to Tully, Narn and JJ going to the
Harry's Bar at the Hemsley Palace, and and the reason was, and I
think Tully or maybe aren't said it, that if Luger is going to be
the top star that we're pushing him to be, then he should have gone
over in the thing. But Dusty successfully put himself over again. When Dusty
went over in the Bunk House Stampede won the boot and won the half million
dollar prize. I was shocked. I thought Lex Luger was going to win
the thing, and I didn't know what was coming down. So when lug
didn't win it, everybody was upset. Things were not going well, things
were down since Starkade and what happened at Starcade, and we were all shocked.
And Jimmy said that night that Luger or that Dusty Rhodes was a genius,
a line that we had heard many times, but look it sounded like
to us he was still hanging on to that. Yeah, it's over,
Jenny, it's over if he's still saying Dusty's a genius in the hotel after
the show, I mean, well, I don't know who didn't watch the
show, but I thought it was a brilliant show. It's probably the most
some of the best wrestling I've ever seen in the history of the whole,
whole, the whole thing. I would be surprised, Tony if we put
Vins out of business by the end of the calendar year. I mean,
look, I'm gonna tell you right now, Tony, I wouldn't be surprised
if we put Vins out of business tonight. That's how fucking great this was.
Right now, I've got a question for you, Tony. How much
do you value your family's livelihood? How much do you value there will be?
And I got a question for you, Tony. Now, how much
money you got in the bank? Right? How much you got and account
other people's money? How about account? Yellers? Can h what's your bank
account number? Do you mean how much is in there, Jimmy or what's
the actual account number? Routing? Please? I like I need your ear
ear well? How much also? Can I see your signature, what's your
social please? And he gives him all this information just because he's so curious
of where this is going. And once Jimmy gets the information, he just
leaves the bar, say another word. I'll see you back at I'll see
it back headquarters Tony. Tony goes to withdraw Hunter bucks the next morning and
it's all fucking gone. Fucking Dusty buys a new mink with Tony's money.
They both do, Jimmy Crockett in the mink coat like Magnantia want a moron,
man, Well, look at the let's see we'll get these match in
jackets. Uh, how'd you pay for those? That's a good question,
my money, right exactly. So listen, if you're listen, If anyone's
don't enough to give someone their bank account number, then that money is the
person. Well, I mean, I worked, I worked for you,
Jimmy, you kind of have to have my bank account number to pay me.
Well, maybe I think it's about time you start paying and that and
that lot of reasoning. Everybody's dumb enough to give their employer or their bank
account number, that's a good point. What the fuck? But yeah,
Dan correct Tony saying that it was a different place, but it wasn't.
It was the Harry's Bar in the Helmsley Palace hotel in New York. So
Harry's Bar is not separate and distinct. I remember looking at Harry's Bar's website.
I think they're like the home of the First Martini or some bullshit like
that. So you can see like them feeling really cool, like you know,
the Crockett guys, feeling really like big city going there. It's kind
of gross, but I know it's like you were in Long Island, dude,
Like, I mean, you weren't playing the garden like I go to
Manhattan. But you're not fooling anybody, right, I mean, it's it's
it's still not like this suburban New York, you know, right right,
I mean stop, I'm pretty sure it's a hike to get there too.
I got a question for your boss wf's up in Hamilton, Ontario on this
evening. Correct. Yes, And we established when we covered World Rumble eighty
eight that, according to Pritcher, the whole crew, as far as from
an office Vince and Company flew in the day of the show from Stanford.
It wasn't like there was, you know, an overnight stay in Hamilton or
anything for the rumble. They flew in and I guess they flew out that
night. Crockett guys are getting together post show at the Helmsley Palace in New
York. If Crockett's in New York, do you think one of Vince's lieutenants
maybe lurking? Yes. Also something happened that night which was very surprising.
Oh my god, Gene Okerland showed up and that's first time I had met
Jeane Okerland and he was there. He said he was just staying there.
He just was in town. And I guess that was Where was the Royal
Rumble at that time? Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario. Okay, this was
very late in the night, and I guess he had flown He had flown
back. There was thought that he was here to try to get Lucer to
go to the w W E. That was paranoia talked that night. But
Luker was our big star and we didn't put him over the bunkhouse stampede.
So Jimmy held firm to his beliefs that night at Harry's Bar, while everybody
was pretty pissed off, and of course you know, the later the night
gets, the more people drink, you know, and the more people you
know. I mean, let's let's face, we're in New York City to
where Cape Fabe is not what it is if you're in Columbia, South Carolina.
In other words, if you're in Columbia, South Carolina, the heels
and baby Face is not going to be in the same bar. At Harry's
Bar in New York City, they were all on the same They weren't sitting
side by side of the bar, but they were in the same room.
Remember our Black Saturday coverage when Vince sent Alfred Hayes down to the Omni.
I do fuck do I have to want to see the gate. I want
to see what's going on. We own this place, now, can you
imagine? I mean, Oakerland was on USA Network doing the Dino Bravos segment.
He's involved in all of these interviews on the show, and they make
sure his ass gets back to New York and in the exact bar all the
Crockett guys are at too snoop around. I can only assume, what's the
problem. Imagine, Jean, what's up? Pal? Hey got a little
mission for you? I know, you thought the night's work was over.
But Car will be picking you up in minutes. Jane, we got it.
Listen, you're gonna get picked up. Car is gonna pick you up.
You're gonna be given several hundred dollars in cash. What I want you
do? As I want you to go to? Where are they? All
right? The driver's going to Helmsley Palace. Helmsley What Helmsley Palace? The
Triple H Palace in the fucking hotel somewhere in midtown. And you're going to
You're you're gonna, yeah, you're gonna buy Lex Luger. What pretty simple
mission. Not everybody it looks back on Dusty's decision to put himself over in
the bunk Castanpete is a negative, even though you know it's everybody remembers the
frustrations being expressed on the night, and despite the fact that he walked out
of the company in solidarity with Tolly Blanchard after the aforementioned leaking of what he
said to Turner executives in the due diligence phase of the purchase, arn Anderson
doesn't look back on Dusty's decision as a negative or at least that's what he
says. Now, let's hear Arn. This is from Arn's podcast that he
does with Conrad talking about his feelings as a participant in the match of course,
as we established, and and a talent. On Dusty's decision to win
the bunk house pretty contract question. I've never had a problem with that.
Dusty was the biggest star in the company. He just was. Ricky and
Robert you could say, were as hot as you can get. Yeah.
It was too a particular age group, mostly women, which really helped draw
a lot of money. Because if you've got a lot of women at ar
wrestling event, kiss who follows them into the event? A lot of guys?
Yeah, and kids loved them. Dusty appealed to everybody, right,
he was across the board, champion for everybody, for grandmothers, grandfathers,
twenty five year olds. He appealed to everybody, and I'm sure kids too.
And you know, he's the biggest star. He was the biggest star
in the company. And him winning, you know when I want to see
Okay, that ended with i'man cole Off as your winner, or aren't Anderson
as your winner? Or Dennis Condry one? You know that doesn't have the
same ring buck House stampede Dusty, who had him cowboy boots every time you
saw him. You know, it's just fit. And if people look at
it and look at the concept, it was like a bunch of cowboys having
a brawl, you know, back in the in the saloon of the old
days. That was the theme of it. And Dusty, you know,
I had no problem with him when it was the right choice. There you
go. So now we know who was leading a Cody to the ring as
part of Team Nightmare in a w F that point in time, I guess.
So, yes, there's a lot of that, a lot of sensitivity
around calling Out's legacy on some of these things, because you know, Cody's
everyone's buddy, so it gets a little sensitive. But you know, there's
been so much lionization of Dusty, you know, when he went over and
re architected NXT and got so many of the current top stars in the business
off on the right foot. It's it's sacrilegious to you know, say anything
negative about the guy. But any who was around before he did that and
before Vince decided to let him back in the door and let Triple h you
know, sort of partner with him to build up NXT remembers with the smirk
that you know, this is a guy that was just perceived as just I
mean, go maniakely driving everything in the ground he touched, right, I
mean that's the thing like you get, you get. I mean, it's
funny how they are these guys who all they want to do when they're wrestling
is put themselves over. But then when they're when they're done and they can't
fucking work anymore, they're so great at putting other guys over, getting other
guys to get over triple hs the same fucking way. You know, a
guy that that that sat there for years and just fucking made our entire college
career miserable in terms of in terms of wrestlings watching, Yeah, you know,
wrestling watching by having to suffer through all that shit that, but then
when push comes to shove and he's on the other side, he's he's a
much better you know, behind the scenes guy. Yeah, yeah, it's
true. It's you know, there are so many wrestlers like Teddy Yass.
I think of an others who knew exactly how to get themselves over, But
we're never good when putting a position to get somebody else over. Never really
could find what until their ass wasn't on the line. What's that? Until
their ass wasn't on the line. Yeah, yeah, I mean dbs.
He sucked at commentary and he sucked at managing, and he got no one
over because he just didn't know how to find that in somebody else. He
didn't know how to highlight the qualities and speak about themselves. Dusty could you
know? Dusty was someone that could spot talent and he could evolve his way
of thinking to see new venues of appeal, like being able to see page
for the the pro wrestling representation of with a Girl with the Dragon tattoo?
You know, like Finns mcphon does not like that movie is and he does
not detect and page a play on that theme? Which did we make that
movie? Is that a girl with the what? Pal? The girl would
Ricky the dragons tattoo? Exactly correct? Right? Last movie I saw pal
was Austin Powers and it was hilarious. The last movie I saw was on
Golden Pond. Oh Man, Like yeah, once once, it's like once
they realize that they can no longer aggrandize themselves and keep themselves in ring performer,
front and center than sure that in Tripoli, Dusty. That's the thing
about it, like because now they're front and center in a different way.
Right now, they're now they're the Now they're the guy everyone thanks, right,
and they can associate themselves with and sort of you know, collect dividends
on the success of the talent that they usher through. You know, Tripoli
has done that, I mean, and anybody who came through an XT when
Vince was kind of letting him play with it like a toy and just you
know, with the whole idea being to basically keep telling away from Ring of
Honor in New Japan, even if Vince would never push them on main roster
and just let them do their forty minute you know, aerobic showcases in the
n XT ring. All those guys, once Vince lost a little bit of
power and influence, ended up coming to WW and just worshiping Triple Hs,
just seeing him as like the vessel. I mean, look no further than
when Vince first stepped down, how much more interest there seemed to be in
talent coming back. All of a sudden, people were going to aw strictly
because they knew Vince would never see anything in them, but I triple h's
booking WWE, while Jesus Christ, well, let's I'll fucking fool ourselves.
We want to be talk guys in ww At the end of the day,
Allister Black and others all of a sudden started making entreaties again that cash brother.
But you know, opinions all over the place, apparently on the decision
for Dusty to go over in the eighty eight Bunkhouse Dampede. We'd heard from
Arn Anderson. Let's hear from another guy in the ad Free Show's family.
This is Jim Ross Tuck, who was of course the commentator on the show
talking about the decision. And I don't remember any by being overwhelmed with that
decision. We had a chance right there, Douse. He was a made
man, for God's sakes. Yes, he didn't need to win the Buckhouse
Dampede. It didn't move the needle and uh and that's just the truth of
it. So we had a chance there to elevate somebody, you know,
maybe Luger, maybe somebody else that you you have a you have a feeling
that could get over. But they just need a little something something to push
him over the top. But Dussie went into the bunk house stampede was unnecessary.
It was just that wasn't more of an ego thing? Well, instead
of going still there you go more importantly? Do we do we know what
Bob Coddle thinks that we don't. I'm sure he would say something Sylvanilla,
Well, you know fans uh as we're As we're watching the bunk House Stampede,
I was thinking to myself, the real one who should have gone over
was m sounds like Bob, the one went under meat loaf. Meat loaf
should go over? How much we gotta pay him? I mean, I'll
do anything for love, but I won't do that. I'll tell you one
thing i'll do. I'll do anything for meat loaf. Yeah, that's a
different conversation. I wish my mom would make me she's been dead like thirty
years, Bob Caddle, I wish my mom would make me a meat loaf.
Jim My well, Jim, well, Jim just wondering if I could
get some of my mom's meat loaf before Oh okay, well Jim just wondering.
Now what exactly puts Jim in a position to decide or facilitate the delivery
of mom's meat loaf to Bob, Like, why is he someone you just
have to check in with on this anybody? Starkaide memorial tour Bob Kydle coming
home after Thanksgiving nights, dark Aide. You know the thing about it is
my wife doesn't like to feed me. That's sad. Whenever I've got to
work. She says, well, Bob, you're gonna come home hungry,
and she cleans out the whole house. No food, only a handgun in
my face. There's usually just a small revolver on the dining room table,
says Bob, here's your dinner. Put it in your mouth. Dark Oh,
I say, I say, okay, what's did you want? I
took a bite that one time and I lost two teeth. Tries to eat
the gun. It's his dinner. What's he supposed to do? Not try
it and I'll insult his wife. He crushes two of his teeth. Oh
well, I don't know, a little bit harder than a job breaker there.
Okay, can we see do it that? I? Maybe I get
a delivery of my mom's meat loaf. Bob, your mom's been dead since
sixty eight I know, but she stored meat loaf and uh freezer someplace?
Can you find it? Do you know where it is? They were talking
about, you know, can we get David allan Coe to do the Great
American Bash Tour dust well, you know, and they started talking about what
about meat loaf? Maybe he's available, and then someone in the other room
over the dusty c I'll do I would do anything for meat love, and
uh, everyone interpreted it. Oh, I just want to say, if
anyone is interested in getting meat loaf, you can count me in. Thanks,
good stuff. J Jr. Said, you know, because he calls
the show with Caddle bunk house step. You know, he loved working with
Coddle, and he said, like, you know, it's a guy.
If you traveled with it was like traveling with your uncle. It was that
sort of pleasant. And the hardest thing you have to worry about drinking is
a mountain dew. So I'd vite you to consider Bob Caddle drinking a mountain
dew traveling. Oh, Jim, this is uh. I believe we have
a very energetic experience going on with this. Bever, it's a little way
to put it, Bob, but we have an energetic experience going on.
I feel a little pepp in my step. I might be, uh,
you know, walking more than a quarter mile an hour. Yeah, you
haven't gone to sleep yet, so it's obviously working. I'm doing the do
as they say, Jim and I, have you ever done the doe do
do? Oh? Oh? Sorry about that. I said a dirty word.
I think he said, I gotta watch my mouth. Have you ever
I think he said, have you ever done the dude do do? Dot?
Dot dot do? Do? Oh? Bab, I can't say I
have well, you know, I gotta I said a dirty word. I
gotta punish myself. Shit, that's a new avenue. The self Flash's okay
with it, everybody. You know my my wife said, I gotta take
care of myself when I when I, when I use a curse word and
doo doo it certain there it is again. Jr. Comes back from like
a snack run. They're sharing a hotel room on the road, and he
opens the door and coddles like fully, like exphyxiated, like, oh,
Jim, I'm just torture. I'm just punishing myself. I did something very
naughty while you were gone, and now I'm in my hand on my penis.
Did Bob shay it again? No? No, no, say it
again? Now, I put my hand on my penis, Jim, I
put my hand on my penis. Jim M. My wife said, that's
not very good. Uh, that's not very gentleman. Let So I have
to punish myself in a way that h will hopefully prevent me from wanting to
do it again. This guy got the worst deal of all time, the
nicest guy in the world, and he is like constantly in the Mo's compromising
positions, unforgiving circumstances. You get the most rowd deal of anyone I've ever
heard of. Jim can ask you a personal question, sure, Bob,
Jim. You know, Jim. Every now and again, as I'm i
wake up in them in the morning and I'm traumatized by by a certain thing.
And for some reason my penis has gotten rock hard. And I don't
know why. I don't know why it does that, but it really it
causes me a great stress every morning. I wish you wouldn't do that.
There's a couple of things you do about that, Bob. As always,
I'd recommend smoking a fat blunt. First of all, I'm figuring it out.
It's not on our line. I've tried to do my w C W
JR. It's not easy. I know, it's very difficult. He's so
kind of normal, talking like young cherubic jiucking chipmunk cheeks. I mean,
Jesus, looking like a baby that just ate four cookies. And here's the
thing he did. You're fucking kidding me? What do you think those ODIs
spunk? My rappers came from jays That a bad thing. That Continental Breakfast
never stood a chance when he was on the road. Oh, I'll forgot
to say, come on. He he heat six croissans and put six more
in his pockets. So so I think when Bob's are Bob just gotta have
a bite. Is that how you it feels like to eat food? Oh,
Jim, it's how it feels, Bob. Look at it. Look
at my crumb trail. The fucking flakiness for the flakes all over the play
god like a like a what do they used to call those things? The
toaster strudles Yep, yep, yep yep, just like everywhere so so croissant
flakes. We need an arbiter here as to whether Dusty made the right call
because we have people all over the map on this thing. Started with Flair's
book. I think Flare has say he's the champion, he's the he's the
horse that's pulling the wagon back. Then Flare rights My match with Staying in
the birth of my son Reid were bright spots and what was otherwise at disappointing
nineteen eighty eight. On January twenty four, Jim Crockett Promotions tried another pay
per view bunk House Stampede from the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. I had
a pretty good match with my friend Mike Hegstrand the late Road Warrior Hawk,
But as far as I recall, everything else about the card turned out to
be a disaster. Vince counter of the show. But the first Royal Rumble
then called the Rumble Royal on the USA network available we have charged anyone.
It wasn't. It was called a Rumble Royale by mistake for like a week,
like people act like day one in the year on USA and we're calling
it Rumble Royale. Was clear from Primetime Wrestling that we played by like the
second mention of it on Primetime they had it straightened out right. The world
Wrestling Federation was at a high point in eight million viewers watched it. Flair
Roade. Crockett may have thought that he was starting a revolution by promoting in
the World Wrestling Federation's backyard, but that wasn't enough to get the fans to
like the show, and Nassau Coliseum wasn't even close to full And why should
it have been? Smart at Dusty is? Sometimes he was so small minded.
An old time bunk house stampede about a royal style match inspired by the
days when farm hands fought it out by the bunk house farm hands, it's
cowboys. Is there a difference? I can't. I don't understand why a
bunch of guys would just fucking be fighting it out from each other? How
do you go? But but okay, sure, but that's like two guys,
or you have like teams of guys. But the way this is described,
it's like you've got six guys who are all against each other, who
want to kill each other, all wronged each other at the same time.
Right, doesn't someone want to sit it out? I mean, isn't aren't
you on sides? I mean, how did this all happen? What was
the timing? Of this point may have done well in the South at one
time, but in New York, Italians from the Bronx and Jews from Brooklyn
couldn't have cared less about cowbells and bull robes. O gave Flair. Has
there ever been a bunk house in Manhattan. I've seen a few bunk houses,
and men, I've seen quite a few bunk houses. You go to
the right neighborhood and there are plenty of houses that are bunk. The company
just seemed so far behind the times, and then we kept David Krockett contributing
this passage to Flair's book. The best thing for Dusty would have been for
him to just book and not wrestle. We probably would have done better.
He kept a lot of people down and chased a lot of fans away because
he wanted to stayed in number one at all times. All of Dusty's ideas
seemed inspired by one movie, True Grit. We gotta put that under the
cinemat that qualifies it get into the booking mind of Dusty and our storylines.
He had to come back from the dead, just like John Wayne. His
creativity got stale after the Nassau sim Show. The boys ended up in Harry's
bar at the Helmsley Palace hotel in Manhattan. Tully was complaining about the direction
of the company. He walked right out to Jimmy and confront him about some
Dusty's decisions. Dusty should book himself against Dusty, he said. Jimmy didn't
want to hear it and walked away. Dusty had gotten so close with Jimmy
that I couldn't reason with him either. Jimmy Crockett had been a very important
part of my life, but I could see our relationship changing. Here was
a person who meant so much to me that I had made him the best
man at my wedding. I couldn't understand how Dusty could step in and con
Jimmy out of that friendship. Dusty also began telling stories that were too preposterous
to believe during a trip of one of the crop. During a trip on
one of Crockett's private planes, Dusty notified a group of us here getting ready
for this one. Boss. I notified a group of us that we were
going to outclass Vince by making these big Hollywood style productions. Oh my god.
Apparently the first movie in the company's list was the life story of Terry
Allen aka magnum Ta, a handsome wrestler who suffered spinal cord damage when he
drove his portion too a telephone poll one rainy night, we all agreed that
Terry had caress that who fucking cares? Well? It could make you know,
we don't have to care about magnum Ta for to make a good story.
It's just an interesting story. I mean, I guess I don't care.
Y all agreed that Terry had an inspirational story that could make a decent
film. Then Dusty added that, what who's who's making movies about me?
Brother? Am I in the movie? Did I film it? Dude?
What's going on by Terry? Brother? Hey? Yo? Date? Whoa
what are you hearing? Brother? What I heard about a movie about Terry?
Dude? I can only you got dollars thing in? Brother? What's
going on? What are the odds that you guys pushing another Hogan named Terry?
This is actually concerning brother? How many Hogans you got over that?
How many Terry's you've been hiring? Dude? I gotta no dude? Am
I over an nwa? Brother? Like it could happen without his knowledge?
Like contracts could be passed in the night, options could be exercised. Am
I working both promotions? Dude? Where am I? Darry? Just go
to bed, we'll talk in the morning. Ah. There sometimes gets these
calls. He goes at one point, how many Hogans you got over there?
Dude? Any Huggans? Dude? Any what Hugans? Yes, plenty
of Hulk Huggans. But get this. Then Dusty added that Sylvester Stallone had
agreed to play magnum Ta. Of course, well, of course Sally Field
was committed to portraying his wife to Mary. Oh my god. The only
problem, dust He said, oh yeah, oh yeah, I'll play.
It's a story of great a story of heart, right sly yeah, yeah,
yeah. You know it's under Dog. You know, I like being
on a dog, especially like how he ends up in a wheelchair and then
we got him getting to him in a match. You know, we could
that's what we could do. We could have him, you know, he
he gets in the wheelchair and then all of a sudden he comes out of
retirement gets in the match. I got ask because I never feel like I
got a straight answer from Terry Funk or Hulk or anybody. This stuff.
It's it's it's not real, right, It's just it's all kind of it's
it's fucking fake, right, I mean, it's all kind of put on,
right, dust Maybe I'm I ask you something, not what are you
putting on? Daddy? Huh? Where are you putting shit on? Baby?
Because I'm sitting here, I'm talking a rocket about Boa and I'm thinking
of myself, what a fucking bitch Yep, I'm gonna eat that bout Boa
and then I'm gonna shot out my ass. You stump fucker beat the ship.
I no wonder he did end up doing the movie. Dusty said,
though he wasn't sure if sally Field was really right for the part, but
they could fucking get anybody. Imagine telling himself this like because he's so in
his mott. We played that one clip on The Rumble eighty eight, remember
of Dusty absolutely losing it on a promo about how we're the best and we're
the real wrestling. He's just like mumbling and just talking about how they're they're
copying us and all this desperation famous last words kind of shit. He's so
fucking lunar. Vince is like doing non wrestling stuff. He's leveraging his wrestlers
and other arenas and media, and and so Dusty is telling himself, all
right, we'll be in movies. It's like Dusty stopped trying to nobody.
Stop. It's not I know you watched movies to come up with booking ideas,
but you are not going to have a film career. Stop. He
wanted it so bad. Oh. He absolutely talked a lot about it during
our War Games. This part was compared to why the War Games match even
happens because he was obsessed with that movie. What was it now? I
already forgot it was mad Max, mad Max, thunder dumb, amazing.
Arn and I looked at each other flair rights and rolled our eyes. If
Jimmy was dubious, he wasn't showing it to us. Later, when his
son dust And started in the World Wrestling Federation as gold Dust, Dusty said
that Vince was arranging to put dust In in a video with Madonna. Of
course, fans were getting tired of seeing the same thing on the road over
and over. The referee would get knocked down, the challenger would toss me
over the top rope, a second referee would run in just in time to
see me to submit or get pinned. The fans would think that I had
lost the championship until the first reff woke up and announced that throwing your foe
over the top ropes was a violation of NWA rules. Therefore, the good
guy was disqualified among the boys. This ending, with a few variations here
and there, was called the Dusty finish. It worked great in the days
of the territories when the fans in Charlotte knew nothing about the match results in
Miami or Oklahoma City. But because of cable and pay per view, people
became so familiar with the Dusty finish that they could predict it ahead of time,
and that wasn't good for business. Yeah that's interesting, Yeah, yeah,
another sort of like how Dusty's mentality was an ill fit for pay per
view. It's like he just like, yeah, right, this is how
we get out of this, this is how we move on. It's like
everybody's watching this, Dusty, like you've got to make them want to watch
again. In the spring of nine eight eight, Vince Man called me with
a straightforward question, what do you think about coming to the World Wrestling Federation.
How So, just months after this, Vince is hitting him up about
coming in. Of course he is, I'd fight you to consider Flair coming
in and eighty eight I mentioned Flair in the WrestleMania four tournament. Huh,
I mean, sorry, Ted, Jesus christ Man Flair eighty eight. Could
you imagine? I mean if all of a sudden, Flare's like a Flair
is a is a like a secret entrant, and and it's like, I'm
sorry, nobody else can fucking win that tournament anymore? Sorry, Ted,
I'm sorry. Savage's picturing him in his resplendent robe walking out at the Trump
Plaza. You know you fair think about this, Think about this, okay,
Rick Flair comes in, wins the tournament, WrestleMania four, WrestleMania five,
Hogan versus Flare Shore And in the eighties, are you kidding me?
Oh? It would consummate it unlike in ninety two. That would have been
spectacular. Can you imagine Flair Hogan WrestleMania five. Oh, but we have
plans. Look at this, Flare writes, he already knew what he wanted
to do with me when the First Summer Slam debuted August twenty ninth, nineteen
eighty eight, I would be in the main event challenging Randy Savage for the
World Wrestling Federation title. That works, too, not quite as good as
what you just laid out, not as quite as good as what I'm thrilled
that you're giving me the opportunity, I responded, But I don't know,
by the way, it's possible to Flare had a contract too that he couldn't
get out of until August, but maybe it wasn't available till August. But
what about I thought, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall created the first guaranteed contracts
in pro wrestling. I was hearing Kelly Blanchard there talk about something that sounded
very much guaranteed, and he listened about twelve other guys that had the same
deal structure. So you fucking tell me, well, hey, you know
what, I wasn't fucking there, But it's really not guaranteed to me.
Right, those guys they get their balloon payments at the end of the year,
guaranteed about him. When you gotta wait till the they fucking leave,
they fucking leave, right, you get these guys, they fucking head out,
they're not getting paid. I fucking gonna check in the mail. I'm
sitting home injured. I'm still getting fucking checks from WCW. Guys getting checks
when they're home injured. Yeah, you're getting checks from wc WALK. You're
not getting checked from WCW. It's a yeah, I know, keV.
I'm just an interviewer, Like, why would I be getting Yeah? My
point is I'm getting fucking checking out of the mailbox in my bathrobe. Yeah.
Check comes every two weeks as tally if it how biweekly his pay cadence
was thrilled that you're giving me the opportunity. You know what he did?
You know what. I'm sorry, but you know what he did have a
fucking guaranteed contract. You want to know what it was. Yeah, sure,
he was guaranteed not to get paid. Nice keV, thanks for swatting
that one away. I was worried about a contradiction, I responded, But
I don't know. I try to explain that the nw AD been my home
since nineteen seventy four and parting ways with the organization seemed a little frightening.
Even though I was getting the running around from Jimmy and Dusty, I wasn't
politically a student enough to deal with being romanced by this guy who I didn't
know. Despite the strain between Dusty and myself, I approached him and mentioned
Vince's offer, But instead of trying to find some sort of common ground,
he just counted, all right, go to Rowan Oak today and draw the
title to the luger. Wow, you're damn right. You're damn right.
And that shoot interview that Dusty did that we excerpted, he calls Rick a
flim flam man, somebody who convinces you that he's in to help other people,
but all he really gives a shit about is himself. So I apparently
Dusty feels season he's entitled to some money that Flair didn't give him that would
put him in a less destitute state. In retrospect, I believe Dusty knew
that Crockett Promotions was going to be sold Flair Rights, and he wanted to
downplay my value to the new owners. I also think that this was the
point where our friendship became very strained. It was painful. For the first
day we met. I respected Dusty and I still respect so much about him
to this day, but now I was seeing him for what he was.
Everything had been great between us until the moment I had rivaled him as a
top attraction. Aster Flair comes down. Yep. As for Jr. You
know from his position as the announcer, he actually thought it was a good
card, but they didn't have any momentum coming into the show. I thought
it was too predictable that the Dusty would win the bunk House the first one
to pay per view. He said that no one knows where the boot is,
and Conrad, the Ultimate wrestling collector doesn't either. That's like a big
holy grail. Does anybody know with the bunk House Stampede, Rod's ye is.
But Jay remembers coming into the show knowing that they would be challenged to
produce much decent and he enjoyed working the show and it was fun, but
it felt a challenge to deliver a real good product, and it was a
good challenge. But they were swimming upstream because nobody was really over, like
really over to where you know. The fans had this sense of we got
to see this, so they had a tough hand they had to play.
Everybody was well aware by this point of the consequences of the balloon payments.
At the end of eighty seven, and late payments to talent led to overreactions
in paranoia. There's a lot of that in a locker room, he said.
Talked about Dallas, as we mentioned, and buying a house in play
Now and losing his ass on it when they turned around and sold the company
to Turner. Might have been poking the beer by going to New York,
he said. Jimmy and Dusty had plans to push into those markets, but
not one that was going to work, and theory, it makes sense,
look at all these markets that aren't being served by our brand of wrestling.
Are things Going national was the right thing to do, but you had to
have a better game plan than these two did. Vince running a rumble against
Bunkhouse Dampede Jr. Recalls on his podcast was the talk of the Crockett locker
room. But the guys who knew Vince well knew not to be shocked by
this move. Jr. Said they simply needed to get some guys or angles
hot and interesting and unpredictable around this point in time and just couldn't. He
didn't like that there were so many bunkhouse matches on the road before they tried
to sell this as a pay per view in a unique attraction, and Nassau
thought it should have been kept more rare, and that in general. Jare
says he'd never really been a fan of Battle Royals anyway, dating back to
his day's referring in mid South and in Oklahoma where he associated Battle Royals with
guys taking it easy and half asking it, which isn't is an interesting you
talked about a little bit in the Rumble show. Yeah, that's an interesting
legacy of the Battle Royal from the territorial days. I never shut it that
way. And you know, when I hear about the San Francisco January Battle
Royals at Patterson in the Rumble after, those were some of the biggest attractions
on the calendar year, right, and it seemed like the big annual Battle
Royal was a huge attraction just about any territory that did them, Like you
know, Andre would come down for Fritz's and Dallas and stuff like that.
It's a big deal. But it's also interesting to hear that this had the
reputation of being a something that wasn't necessarily a great value to the wrestling ticket
buyer. When it was Battle Royal time, everybody thought that just meant all
the all the wrestlers taking it easy. But for the fans, and you
know, Battle Royal is fucking exciting of course. Yeah, so I think
it's it's always it's funny. It is funny, how how disconnect there is
there really is because it's so It's always been one of my favorite matches.
I always loved, loved Battle Royal, especially growing up, and I've seen
so many. We watched some of the early ones from Coliseum collection, remember
like the Big John stud one, the one eight four in La. Yeah,
these matches, it doesn't it doesn't strike you, even as as a
fan that is kind of smart Now, all these years later, it doesn't
look like the guys are taking it easy. I don't know, right,
I guess in theory it makes sense that guys would take it easy in a
match where they couldn't take bumps if they wanted to. But I have yet
to see a Battle Royal where I'm like, all right, everyone's a fucking
dog in this. You know, It's never a thought that crossed my mind
when I watched Battle Royals until I started hearing all these old timers saying that
that's kind of how everybody regarded battle Royals within the business as a night off.
Yeah, so here's Jr. Speaking to just kind of the state of
things that Crockett at the time of the show. But I do think there
was he was getting a frayed around the edges, getting a little burned out.
And it's easy to seek why, and sure, and who wouldn't That's
the thing about not knocking Dusty for God's sakes, God bless her soul.
But he needed he needed to tag out and I think that a fresh set
of eyes and a fresh set of ideas was very uh much needed. But
it just didn't have He didn't want to give up his power, and he
wouldn't have had to have somebody else book it and then you prove it,
are disprove it. That could happen. But he he's like a lot of
old guys that were territory guys and finally made it to a position of influence
and financial security. And it's just it was not it was a tough thing.
It was a tough thing. I think he needed help and and uh,
you know, you were afraid to say much to him because he he
took everything as ah, you're you're knocking my booking type thing personally. Yeah,
yeah, and that's as that was very unfortunate. Something else I wanted
to ask about is the way, here's just clarify this one second. My
opinion is Dusty didn't see any value in it. Jimmy was open minded.
Jimmy just wanted to grow the business. But does he has such creative influence
over Jimmy that Jimmy just didn't have the conviction lack of a better term a
top of my head too to do this. He's gonna ride. He didn't
want to upset Dusty. He didn't want Dusty to see that well, Jimmy's
got a different idea, or Jimmy didn't trust me anymore, or whatever.
Wrestler paranoia is. It never goes away, man, No, deep in
your heart it will see Thank you, jim Yeah, thank you very much.
That's right. And the thing he's talking about Dusty not seeing value in
is using the u WF Mid South guys from the purchase in a prominent way.
Most of them just found themselves to find down like Steve Williams is looking
for a way out the UWF Heavyweight champ when they bought the company. Yeah,
you know, Jim has found a spot and they're putting him, in
fact on TBS, which leads to Chavanni saying, fuck this, m I'm
not going to not be on the national show after all these years in this
company and going to WWF. But for the most part, all the wrestlers
that they got Michael Hayes on down, they're all Bubba came over, They're
all finding ways out the door after this. And Yeah, Dusty just didn't
see value in New WF. And that was pretty much the end of the
story, even if there was a glimmer from Jim Crockett that there so there's
something could be done. They get Terry Taylor, who came in as a
result of the purchase and was pushed pretty hard in the beginning. Dusty fired
him, reportedly because Dusty caught him imitating him in the locker room with the
boys. Oh my god, I can imagine that Dusty at this time must
have fucking hated anybody doing impressions of him. Man, Yeah Jr. Says
later in the podcast, he says, you know, when you've got an
alpha male like that, you can you can criticize him one on one,
you know, in a in a private meeting. But when you criticize an
alpha male like that, or make fun of an alpha male to a wider
audience, this is immediately they's gonna find a way to get rid of you.
Yep, yep, yep, you're done. Yeah. Tully talked about
after word getting out of him shit talking Dusty, that all of a sudden
he was on less desirable flights and found himself, you know, with less
comfortable accommodations on the road. So Dusty definitely knew how to put a ton
of energy into making its sting if you crossed him. And I think I
think Cody carries that too. I think Cody is very sensitive about people making
fun of Dusty. Uh. He's very defensive about the reality of the Polka
dot thing, you know, he has like he's convinced himself that it wasn't
Vince just taking a piss on his dad, which is exactly what it was,
Yeah, and all the rest. So, you know, I think
it's not Guess what if you celebrate that you're a fucking phony, Well,
if you believe what Dusty told himselves so he could go back and collect another
decade of money from Vince about that being just sort of all in good fun.
You know, you're kind of it's kind of suss that you let yourself
believe that when you look in the context at the time and realize everything that
was going on. But yeah, you know, as far as the mentality,
Jr. Says he wouldn't be at that point. It was like you
would be surprised to hear on any given day that they were selling or closing
down. The infrastructure was lacking, and it was talked about all the time
in the company, but Crockett was loyal to too many people. He kept
too many people employed that didn't really help push the company forward, no matter
what the cost. He mentioned klondyke Bill as an example, though Jr.
Was quick to say it doesn't necessarily be in klondyke Bill wasn't good at his
job and contributing, but he was just sort of like an emblematic of the
kind of person that would never go even if they couldn't do their job.
Everybody opened their eyes like, wait a minute, we keep doing the same
thing over and over. None of it's working. Jim said, why not
if you Jim Crockett tries something different. But Dusty had that magical hold seemingly
over Jimmy, and that got a lot of heat on Jimmy Crockett. Jarre
knows the talents when they were alone with Crockett would express themselves directly to him
about their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs and talking about how Dusty's killing us
and you're not doing anything about it, and he didn't, and he didn't,
and he was remorseful about that later, Like the High Spots documentary that's
terrific on the Crockett years, the first interviewers to find Jim Crockett since eighty
eight really yeah, or at least in a context to talk about the collapse
of Crockett Promotions, because he did try a few promotional ventures in the nineties
after a short lived tenures, still being involved with the turnaround WC do after.
I think I can promote other things they can't. I think I think
I'm you know, I think I'm a good general promoter. I believe that
I can promote generalities in uh in this world general activities. Okay, fine,
I believe I believe I can promote generalities in this world. I'm just
I don't know what you wanted to say. I'm just repeating what you said,
and well, I don't want there's nothing to say, just that this
is I believe that that that the world, My world does not revolve around,
you know, professional athletics. I believe that I can promote other things
to a more general base of humanity. I believe that is always a key
pretext in the laps character's statement, because usually you're the only one that believes
that. But it was hard to know what to talk to because if you
piss the wrong person off or dust he perceived he was criticizing him, like
he just he just flies off the handle, you know, like he's just
gonna scream and do the whole his whole jive talk thing whenever somebody's like,
dude, you're you're out of bullets, man, No, dadda, I
mean I'm a fucking bullets baby, because you know what, I got the
biggest bullet of all right here, daddy, I got the pen, the
pen that rough down exactly what's gonna happen every net when it comes to NBA
rough and daddy, And I'm gonna tell you, maybe I feel as long
if I'm doing that, you ain't got no fucking job, all right,
Danny, because you're gonna fit Mack. You're gonna watch a lot of people
doing the ship and then I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna put my foot
in your face and then I'm gonna shot on your damn head. How about
that, motherfucker. I'm a Mack and dreamed down the road and you're the
American bitch. You bitch as motherfucker and all the way, you better believe
I'm gonna win the Bunkhouse Stampede. The concept of the Bunk House Stampede about
boy, I got fucking heat for that man and I get he with Lex
Luger and Flair and stinging these fucking guys. Is that the bull rope was
a unique thing that I that I created because of the d for me and
created that. That was the first extreme h match, real new extreme match,
besides the war Games and everything and uh and I owned the war Games.
It's my deal, you know. I think that the extreme I think
I got a group like ec W first ever sell it to PAULI war Games,
anything goes, it would be phenomenal. I just take a meager fee
for but he uh uh the Bunks Tempe we had cage matches, right,
and our cage match was different than Vinces vinceys. You put a cage in
to get out. I didn't ever understand that concept. You get out the
door, you go over the top of you win. The match. Art
was to keep the heartsoman out, to keep the evil guys out, to
keep the people out from getting in and finally finishing this thing with you and
so and so. You know, let's finish this match, and uh something
always happened in some cases, but a lot of finishes were done in the
cage. So the concept of the two and me being the cowboy from Texas
and the Bull of Woods, the baddest you know, in the in the
in the in the deal. The concept came for the bunk House Stampede because
we needed and now we had started. Instead of doing four pay per views
at three, we were doing five. We were doing six. So I
was and naming the different things. I wanted different concepts and different things to
happen. Leathal lottery and you know there were I had to create in the
Stampede with a not a throwaway pay per view, but it was a pay
per view that was at a time of year. The were. It always
didn't do as well as the other ones, but we had to do it,
and we couldn't make a little money off of it. And it was
over the top coming to our bunk house rules, because back then you always
had the street fights. But in our company it was bunk house street fights
be cause the cowboy that era, you know what I mean. It wasn't
like the New Jersey the Chicago. What the hell is the difference between the
Chicago New Jersey and the Texas street fight? There? You so mine was
the concept was in the old days, we didn't here we come again.
I said, video precede what I'm wanna do. Bunk house, the old
West. We showed all the deal, you know what I mean. It's
like a midnight rider. We showed the video preceded this this thing, and
uh so we told the story of the old days, the bunk house and
all that stuff. So it just came about like that. And I had
won the I had won the stampede because I was a creator. I was
the I was a bull of the woods. I created this fucking thing.
There was none of the cowboys and god damn thing, you know what I
mean? What looker want to be a fucking cowboy, I mean, you
know what I mean. So that was my match, you know, and
I wanted again the second year and the Nassau Coliseum and uh Long Island.
Remember getting on the plane and then questioning me about that, Why did you
put yourself over on this thing? And uh, I kind of laughed to
myself, you know what I mean, and uh it was just uh it
was just uh, we don't even do it no more, but it was
just uh an era that uh that that thing did some business, you know.
That's how that's how it came about. When I was a king,
that was my match. Nobody else gonna win that fucking match with me.
But here it is not putting words in his mouth. That's rout, baby.
No one fucking winning that a god damn it with me. And so
I am the bull of the hoods that it. And so within a year,
what do you think has happening? Do you think Dusty is vindicated?
Businesses up, they're fighting tooth and nail with Vince, pushing in a new
market, successfully consolidating talent, and they're differentiated kind of presentation of pro wrestling
or no, do you think everyone's sitting around wondering how did we get here?
And it was it was it was like riding the wave, you know.
So I mean to say whether he's good, bad, or indifferent.
When I was there, it was nothing but good. You know. I
don't know what kind of booker he was after I left, Uh, but
it wasn't too long that things kind of fell apart. And I don't know
what contributed to that, but I can remember Vince making a comment to me
at TV one time. We were all sitting watching the monitor and we were
in Syracuse or Rochester, New York or something like that, and it was
Dusty sitting there, and Barry sitting here, and me sitting here and aren't
sitting here and and uh, Vince looked around like this and he said,
is my territory safe? And I just looked. I didn't I couldn't respond.
I mean, what kind of I didn't understand the comment at the time,
And you know, it was he was kind of being humorous, but
he kind of wasn't being humorous too, you know, because it was we
were all working for him, you know, in six months earlier, we
were all you know, opposition to him. Good God, damn right,
that's right with that, I believe it's time for the bunk House Stampede nineteen
eighty eight death Toll. Boss, ooh we we have I didn't well?
Yeah, thank seven seven so kind of funny, not not not never as
many dead on the on the NWA JCP, the non steroid ch w Yeah
of the you know the down South, the less system shows. Yes,
we have Paul Jones, Yeah, bush Whacker, butch who's in the dark
match before it's a recent one and it's a recent one. Another recent one.
Bobby eat Shore. It's not that he's Bobby, he's eating his grave.
Uh. We have Hawk, Ivan Coloff, Animal, I mean Mac
and dream Duff the road rest in peace to all in the Bunkhouse Stampede.
And with that, Boss, I think we need to get our jeans on.
I got him, I got my cowboy hat, I got my cowboy
boots get and I got a I don't know whatever else I need. I
got a horse too, Can I use a horse? We'll go find out.
I'm gonna tie this bandanna around my neck and we're gonna get to deep
dive. And this motherfucker it's time for the latest deep dive into that WW
Network Archive. It's the first ever I guess you could say unfucked with to
some degree, pay per view presentation from Jim Crockett Promotion's head up with the
very first televised Royal Rumble. It's the Bunkhouse Stampede nineteen and eighty eight.
On the other side of this break